All Danger is Near to Death
by gunhilde
Summary: Sigrid is a lone wolf, forced into a pack and a destiny she never wanted. Vilkas is still coming to terms with the idea that much of his life has been a lie. Both of them must adapt to survive... Follows the MQ, Imperial, and Companions questlines.
1. Beginnings

**Author's Note: **Another Companions story, yes. But I'm also planning to cover the Main and Imperial Questlines, and try and really flesh out some of the characters, their motivations, etc. Sigrid is my game Dovahkiin. Please let me know if you like it, etc. I'm not totally sure how many chapters this is going to be just yet, but I'm having fun writing it. :)

* * *

><p>…<em>before the headland<br>Thou findest, and doom of a fool;  
>In the water shalt drown if thou row 'gainst the wind,<br>All danger is near to death._

-The Poetic Edda, from _Fafnismol_, translated by Henry Adams Bellows

_Ever with grief  
>and all too long<br>Are men and women  
>born in the world;<br>But yet we shall live  
>our lives together…<em>

-The Poetic Edda, from _Helreið Brynhildar,_ translated by Henry Adams Bellows

* * *

><p>She never thought her first glimpse of the home country in over a decade would be from the back of a cart, mistaken for a rebel and in the company of a Jarl, a soldier, and a horse thief. There was, Sigrid thought, an almost perfectly grim humor to the entire situation, a bad tavern joke. If she had no idea what was coming, she would have been amused. Even so, she couldn't help laughing, though there was no pleasure in the sound.<p>

Skyrim was a pretty land: after the hot, wet forests of Cyrodiil and Elsewyr, the crisp pine scent in the air felt good in her lungs. Lighter. Almost light enough to forget the ropes cutting into her wrists.

"Hello, you're finally awake. You were the one they caught trying to cross the border, aren't you?" Wide blue eyes examined her curiously—the yellow-haired Nord sounded kind—a kinder voice than she'd expected to hear this day.

Sigrid couldn't quite bring herself to answer right way: the pain of her own stupidity choked the words in her throat. Distracted by her own damn thoughts, she'd walked right into an ambush that a child would have seen _yards_ away. Of course they'd thought she was a Stormcloak: why else would a Nord have been crossing the border right at the site of an Imperial ambush? It all tied up so damn neatly. And now she'd lose her head because of it. Fitting.

Lokir the horse thief scowled at the soldier. "Skyrim was _fine_ until you Stormcloaks came along. The empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking for _you_, I'd have gotten away with the horse. Halfway to _Hammerfell_ by now."

His whining voice grated on her ears and Sigrid attempted to tune him out. It took her a few seconds before she realized that Lokir was still talking. "You there—you and I aren't supposed to be here! It's these Stormcloaks that the Empire wants."

She curled her scarred lip at him, disdainful. Of course, a man as cowardly as a horse thief wouldn't be able to face his death with anything approaching composure. In the recessed corners of her memory she could hear her father saying: _my dear, all you have in this world and the next is your honor._

"We're all brothers and sisters in binds now, thief," the Nord replied philosophically.

"Be quiet back there!" said the cart-driver.

Sigrid allowed the jolting cart to lull her back into the state of half sleep she'd lingered in that morning, eyes unfocused as the trees began to give way to neat little stone houses, well-tended and cozy-looking. A boy ran after the cart; his father called him back. Sigrid made what she hoped was a frightening face at the child, and that seemed to do the trick: he went running back to the safety of his parent, while she laughed again—she knew she was not a beautiful woman, but she must be looking rough these days indeed if it was so easy to scare a child. More dirt, more scars to add to her collection. The black war paint around her eyes had smudged and blood still caked her face beneath her nose and down her chin. Some of it was hers. Some of it belonged to the Imperial soldier she'd head-butted before they took her down. She spat on the floor of the cart at the memory, and the man with the rag in his mouth glared at her.

"What's with him?" Lokir asked, eyeing the big Nord, who was richly dressed and gagged with an incongruously filthy rag. He had the glow of health about him, used to good food and soft beds, Sigrid imagined. Men like him oozed wealth even when unclothed.

"You watch your tongue," the soldier said, disgusted that Lokir would even presume to address his—captain? "You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak—the true high king of Skyrim!"

Sigrid couldn't decide whether to groan or laugh again. Fate truly seemed to be playing some sort of cosmic joke on her, the culmination of a life spent dancing at the edge of death.

"Ulfric? Jarl of Windhelm? But if they captured _you_, then—oh, gods, where are they taking us?"

"I don't know where we're going, but Sovngarde awaits," the soldier replied.

_Sovngarde_. Would Tsun welcome her across the whalebone bridge, or would she wander forever on the plains, lost and alone? Grimly, she began to weigh the deeds of her past, one against the other. She had tried to live up to her father's expectations, but such a thing was not always possible. There were things she had done that would not have made him proud. Did not make _her_ proud. She'd tried to kill only those who deserved it, but such a luxury was not always available, not in these times.

"End of the line. Make it quick! Wouldn't want to keep the gods waiting…"

And she would go to the headsman's axe without a chance to make them right.

The soldier was speaking again, but the words almost didn't make sense: "Look, that's General Tullius, the military governor, with his Thalmor puppet masters. _Damn_ elves, I bet they had something to do with this."

"Doesn't matter now," Sigrid said, speaking up for the first time.

"No," the soldier said, softly. "This is Helgen. I used to be sweet on a girl here… I wonder if Vilod is still making that mead with juniper berries mixed in. Funny; when I was a boy, Imperial walls and towers used to make me feel so safe.

"Yes, it does matter!" the horse thief said, before he began praying frantically, to any of the Divines that might have been listening. Sigrid, who had never given the Gods much thought herself, thought that perhaps it would have been a good idea not to invoke Talos in front of those Thalmor in their shining armor and disgusted expressions. _Or maybe_, she thought, a touch of mischief sneaking in, _why not. _It's not as though she would survive this afternoon, anyway.

"Who are they, daddy? Where are they going?" a small child piped up from the street side.

"You need to go inside, little cub…"

Sigrid's legs screamed in protest as she stood and followed the other prisoners out of the cart; she'd been sitting so long and in such an unnatural position that the flow of blood had stopped. On pins and needles, she forced herself not to stumble, and was more than slightly amused to find that she was a good head taller and broader across the shoulders than Lokir, who looked as though he'd snap if you glanced at him wrong. _Oh, children_, she thought dispassionately. Ulfric stood proudly next to Ralof, and Sigrid revised her assessment: that one was no child, whatever his sleek health and rich clothing.

"No! We're not rebels! You've got to tell them!" Lokir pleaded.

"Don't lump me in with thieves, _thief_," Sigrid muttered out of the side of her mouth.

"Ugly bitch," said Lokir, but she refused to dignify that with a response.

A female captain, hardbitten and harsh, stood next to a soft-eyed legionnaire, she all glares, and he looking rather sad to see them there, that the war had come to this. "Step forward when your name is called," said the man.

"Empire loves their damn lists," the soldier muttered under his breath.

"Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm."

Ulfric moved forward with an easy grace, meeting the legionnaire's eyes without malice.

"Ralof of Riverwood." She might have been mistaken, but Sigrid thought she saw a flash of recognition between the men—they might have known each other.

"Lokir of Rorikstead."

"I'm not a rebel! You can't do this!" Lokir squealed and, bound hands still waving before him, bolted down the road.

"Halt!"

"You're not gonna kill _me_!"

_And how far do you think you'll get, thief? _Sigrid thought. Not far, it turned out: "ARCHERS!" the captain yelled, and with the soft hiss of feathers in the wind, the horse thief collapsed onto the Helgen road. A bad death. She hoped he had some preferred afterlife or God to pray to, for surely Sovngarde would not open its gates to _him_.

"Anyone else feel like running?" the officer demanded.

The legionnaire with the list looked at it then looked up again, uncertainty shading his voice. "You. Come forward. Who are you?"

"Sigrid." She considered appending her family name, Frost-born, or _of Winterhold_ at the end, but it had been years since she had claimed either name, or set foot on the cold, hard ground of the ruined city. She could barely remember the meager buildings of her hometown. But she could still taste the tart snowberries picked fresh from the bush. Hear the howling of the ice wolves in the dark and the lapping waves of the Sea of Ghosts.

"You chose a bad time to come home, kinsman," the legionnaire murmured. Too soft for this job. "Captain, what should we do? She's not on the list."

"Forget it!" the captain said. "She goes to the block with the rest of them."

"By your orders, Captain," the legionnaire said, and looked at Sigrid again with sad brown eyes. _Like a hound's_, she thought. That liquid sympathy was just as meaningless now. He continued: "I'm sorry; at least you'll die here in your homeland. Follow the Captain, prisoner. I'll see that you're given the proper burial rites."

"Thank you," Sigrid replied, surprised at this small bit of decency. She had hoped that she'd have had longer than twenty-eight years on Nirn, but as she looked at the executioner's block, she began to reconcile herself to the idea. She couldn't really blame them. Life came cheap on Tamriel, and in their position, who's to say she wouldn't do the same?

Tried to reconcile herself, anyway. And ignored General Tullius' gloating little speech—it seemed unmanly, somehow, to draw out the death that way. She did not know this Ulfric, but he seemed as much a Nord as she. Sigrid rocked on her heels and was shoved hard in the back by the butt of a spear. She didn't fall, but she did spit a curse, wishing she had not been stripped of her armor and sword at some point during her capture. In these rags, she felt utterly naked.

The force of that blow again, deep in her bones, but the Imperial soldier hadn't touched her. No—it hadn't been a physical force, but a distant roar like the rumbling of an avalanche or the collapse of a gigantic tree—or an enraged beast.

"What was that?" the legionnaire asked.

"It's nothing," Tullius said curtly. "Carry on."

The priestess of Arkay began the last rites, but was interrupted—a Stormcloak rebel walked of his own volition to the chopping block and knelt down next to it. "Come on, I haven't got all morning. My ancestors are smiling at me, Imperials! Can you say the same?"

He never received his answer: the executioner, grinning wildly, raised the axe and brought it down sharply on his neck. One heavy-handed hit, and the head rolled into a waiting basket with a gush of blood. Sigrid could smell it in the air, the metal tang familiar, almost comforting. She knew where she stood now.

"As fearless in death as he was in life," the other Stormcloak murmured. Sigrid found herself agreeing: despite the situation it was a good death. He had looked it in the face, and bravely.

"You. The Nord in rags. You're next!"

That roar again: closer this time. Almost overhead. Sigrid looked up sharply but could see only the blinding sun crossed with cloud and shadow. The last sun she would ever see.

"What _is_ that?" another of the Imperials asked. The fear trembled in his voice.

"I _said_, next prisoner," the captain snapped, as though she had not heard the same rumbling that echoed in all of their bones.

"Walk up to the block, prisoner, nice and easy," the legionnaire said.

Sigrid sighed and strode forward. She would not cower, but that did not change the fact that she died a coward's death, not in battle as she had always thought she'd meet her end. She hoped that would not keep her from the Hall of Valor in Sovngarde, but there was no sense in worrying about this now. Instead, she knelt at the block and placed herself upon it, still wet with blood. And waited, the seconds stretching by at an excruciatingly slow pace. She calculated the time it would take her to move when the axe came down. She could lurch to her feet and throw herself at the executioner—but with her hands bound, she'd be an easy target. Weighing the quickness of a clean chop against the slower pain of being cut down by blades, Sigrid was spared the choice by another roar. It _was_ overhead.

"What in Oblivion is that?" the General growled.

And then the world filled with blood and fire and smoke, and everything went mad.

"A dragon!"

It was huge: all rippling black scales and bat-like wings and very large teeth, stained with blood, and crazed red eyes that burned through her like the sun. The mighty beast landed atop the guard's tower and roared, a screech that rended the flesh down to the very bone. And it opened its mouth and Sigrid could have sworn that within the screeching, a deep voice growled words in a language she couldn't understand but that felt achingly familiar. From her vantage point she could see men and women running through the flames, screaming, wailing.

"Hey, you! Get up! Come on! The gods won't give us a second chance!" Ralof of Riverwood yelled at her, pulling her arms and dragging her to her feet. Hands still bound together, Sigrid ran madly after him, though every fiber of her being screamed to find a way to cut the binds, to run back towards the dragon, to _fight_.

Instead, she found herself breathing hard, inside a stone tower with her pupils dilated hugely, staring at Ulfric Stormcloak and Ralof as they held a hurried conference—Ralof had already cut Ulfric's bindings and the Jarl yanked the gag from his mouth.

"Was that a dragon? Could the legends be true?"

"Legends don't burn down villages," the Jarl said grimly. As if to prove the reality of that observation, the tower shook with the force of the dragon's awful roar. "We need to move. _NOW._"

"Let's go before the dragon brings the whole bloody tower down on our heads," Ralof agreed, and Sigrid began to follow him up the steps, more slowly—her balance off.

With a crack of breaking stone and the sudden, blistering heat of dragon flame, the wall in front of them exploded in a burst of blisteringly hot debris and falling rock and plaster. A startled yell escaped her lips, lost in the din. Some insane thing inside her propelled her screaming toward the hole, though, just in time to see the dragon flying away again.

"See that inn on the other side? Jump over there! I'll be right behind you!" said Ralof.

"Are you bloody _insane_?" Sigrid demanded.

"You're one to talk, woman!" Ralof said, laughing, "I saw you running at that monster, hands tied behind your back. Would you attack it with your head? It's probably hard enough."

Sigrid laughed too, high and clear, and backed up a few steps to get a running start. He was right—maybe she was crazy. But that did nothing to hide the fact that she felt more alive now than she had in days, in fact, ever since she had been stupid enough to stumble into the ambush. Muscles screamed in protest as she bolted for the window, pushing up with her bare feet at the last minute. The brief feeling of flying buoyed her, and then she was falling, falling, hitting the ground hard. The heat of the burning wreckage singed her; the pain of the landing jolting her into wakefulness. Not for the first time she was intensely thankful that she kept her hair cropped short as a man's: nothing to catch fire—except her own skin. She ran down the stairs, through a crack in the wall, only to be confronted by the legionnaire of the lists, protecting several survivors behind a burning ruin that had once been a home.

"Still alive, prisoner? Stick with me if you want to stay that way," the legionnaire yelled, gesturing for her to join them.

"The last time I followed you, it was to the chopping block!"

"That wasn't on _my_ account, prisoner—follow me, and I'll keep you alive. Stick to the wall!"

Sigrid, suddenly eager to remain on this plane of existence, followed him, and after a second, felt glad she did so. The force of moving air almost knocked her to her knees again as the dragon landed on the wall above them, the scream of monster and flame deafening, the sheer weight of it above her crushing. "You got it, boss," she said, and shuddered as the monster snapped a man in half in its jaws as though he were a piece of bread.

She followed the legionnaire as he darted through the wreckage, keeping close to cover whenever possible, the dragon swooping overhead, screaming like a demon that had finally escaped the pits of Oblivion. In the courtyard they found General Tullius and a few surviving Imperial soldiers. At the very least, the General seemed to not be a lily-livered coward lurking on the sidelines—out in the courtyard with his men, attempting, but failing to defend what remained of the town. Sweat poured down his face as he turned to fix them with an intent stare. "You! Hadvar! Take the prisoner into the Keep!"

"Yes, sir!"

Sigrid did her best to keep up with him, though she worried that she might have broken her foot in the fall, and her hands remained tied behind her back. Evidently there wasn't time to cut them. _Of course_. Maybe he was afraid she'd go for his throat? As they ran across the courtyard, dodging fiery dragons' breath, the philosophical Stormcloak, Ralof, stood in their way.

"Ralof, you damn traitor! Out of my way!"

"Get out of _my_ way! You'll not stop us this time!"

Neither of them seemed eager to fight, however, and Sigrid sighed—this was going to be a standoff unless she intervened. "Look, we'd _all_ like to get away from this damned dragon so let's get a move on, eh?" She stepped between the two until the swords were sheathed, and then followed Hadvar into the Keep—and unknowingly, towards her Fate.

* * *

><p>The wolves ran the plains at night, a beautiful sight from a distance: the graceful, loping movement of their legs and the reflected glory of the moon in their pelts. Move closer, though, and the beauty became terrifying: the three runners were not <em>just<em> wolves. Even on all fours they would dwarf a man. Powerfully muscled arms and legs and huge outsized paws, monstrously stretched faces with glowing red eyes and a disturbingly human intelligence put lie to any pretensions of beauty. There was, nevertheless, a terrible grace to them. To the knowledge that any of these three night-runners could rip a man apart in a few seconds, with ease.

A female led the charge, and behind her two males, marked like mirrors. The three in concert, so close, so controlled. A well-oiled machine, a pack of killers, a trio of dancers: to watch a werewolf run is to observe an awful poetry in motion.

And when they brought down their prey it was with dark blood wetting and whetting their muzzles, and flashing white teeth, and heavy breaths, and that had its own beauty, too.

In the morning the three wolves woke in their beds, unaware of what was to come; soft and hairless and mortal, but no less for it.


	2. Myths

_Silent and thoughtful and bold in strife  
>the prince's bairn should be.<br>Joyous and generous let each man show him  
>until he shall suffer death.<em>

-The Poetic Edda, _Hávamál_, translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>The wind carried knowledge. Even in his human form, Vilkas sometimes found it difficult to ignore the sheer amount of information that the world gifted him. A terrified rabbit hiding behind a bush. The stench of Torvar's vomit, which the man had yet to clean up in the Living Quarters. Something burning from the chimney flue of the Temple of Kynareth. When he had first undergone the transformation it had been liberating, to know all of these things without moving. Now, as he neared his thirtieth year, he found it more and more exhausting. The luxury of closing himself off from the world had been one he could not afford for many years. He almost couldn't remember it: the blindness, the deafness. The idea of returning to it was…not necessarily appealing. Like cutting off a gangrenous limb, he knew that it might one day be necessary, but the thought of living like an amputee for the rest of his life did not seem appealing. It was exhausting, sometimes—the transformations, the pull of the moon when the night rolled over Skyrim, but to imagine life without the call of the blood—almost inconceivable.<p>

Vilkas spat on the ground, glad that no one else was there to witness him like this. He often greeted the day like this, perched on the steps of Jorrvaskr and watching the sun rise over the walls of Whiterun, alone with his thoughts and the relative quiet of the town before the blacksmith's opened, before the market stalls filled, and it was time to run out into the wilds to track down the latest escaped prisoner or wild beast. The irony of the latter never failed to escape him.

A creak of the wooden doors signaled the arrival of another Companion, and the sound of footsteps told Vilkas that it was his twin—only Farkas had that heavy, shuffling step, totally unconcerned what he disturbed. He could blunder cheerfully into a group of Draugr and just as cheerfully decimate them later. As a child he'd always been the one to clean up the messes rather than avoid them. Sometimes, Farkas would attempt to sneak up on him and shove him to the ground, or pull a sword on him when he was least expecting it. He rarely succeeded.

"A child could hear you a mile away," Vilkas said, by way of opening conversation. "You're pathetic."

Farkas merely grinned at him, that wide, wolfish, slightly dumb smile filled with teeth that could be both endearing and enraging. He sat down heavily on the stairs next to his brother. The two men sat in silence for long moments as the sun slowly peaked out from the clouds, bathing the city in a soft, rose-gold light. Farkas could never sit still for long, though—he had an innate need to be constantly in motion that defeated the meditative mornings that Vilkas preferred. And today he was being unnaturally settled, hands tense on the edge of the stairs.

He looked sideways at his brother, one eyebrow raised. They didn't always talk, but then, they didn't always need to talk. One of the stranger side effects of being a twin, or possibly just of being raised together, learning to fight together. In some ways they were closer even than they would have been, had Jergen not rescued them and brought them to Jorrvaskr. They were brothers, but they were also shield-brothers. They knew each others' attacks, defenses. To know how a man fought was to know his inner being. And as the eldest, it was Vilkas' responsibility to know when something was wrong.

"You talk to Kodlak yesterday?" Farkas asked, after a long pause, in which he had refused to look Vilkas in the eye.

"No," said Vilkas.

"Think you should," Farkas said, and clapped Vilkas on the back before standing in one easy motion and strolling off to the training grounds to grab a practice sword, leaving Vilkas alone and perturbed. He had never had Farkas' ability to switch his emotions on and off as a new distraction entered his mind.

And then another thought came to him: Kodlak had wanted to talk to Farkas _first_?

Something was definitely, definitely wrong.

It was time to see the Old Man.

* * *

><p>Inside Jorrvaskr, the Companions were sleepily rising from their beds and trickling into the main hall for breakfast. It was always a mixed bunch in the mornings; some slept later than others; Njada was particularly notorious for being difficult to rouse. Athis quietly drank a cup of tea in the center of the table; Ria eagerly chattered at Aela about some adventure the two of them had experienced the day before as they ate their morning meat and egg. Torvar sat at the edge of one of the tables, groaning and nursing his hangover with another glass of mead. Vilkas shook his head: that one was a lost cause, but they had had so many empty beds at Jorrvaskr, and he was so eager to prove himself on the field of battle, that Kodlak had let him in, much to Vilkas' disapproval. No point in bringing in useless deadweight who would need to be watched in battle, or who could fall, leaving a shield-sibling unprotected. Useless to protest now, though. Torvar was his sibling, whether he liked it or not.<p>

He did not see Kodlak among the crowd, but this was not unusual. Since the old man had contracted the rot, he did not come above the stairs quite so often, and spent much of his time in his bedchamber, reading. And he had been extremely close-mouthed in the last few weeks about the subject of his research—Vilkas had a sinking suspicion that he knew what _that_ was about. But he would hold his tongue and wait to hear it from the Harbinger's mouth himself.

The coolness of the stone tunnels of Jorrvaskr was not banished by the warmth of the fires that burned throughout the day. He had become accustomed to the chill, however, when walking. Though Kodlak's room especially would be a shock after the cool morning and those halls; the fires there were always built up and roaring, to keep the old man as comfortable as possible.

Pausing respectfully outside of Kodlak's quarters, Vilkas could see that the old man was seated at his table, bent over a book. He cleared his throat and coughed, and Kodlak looked up and nodded. "Come in, boy." No matter how they grew or what deeds they had accomplished or what songs the bards sung of them, to Kodlak, Vilkas and Farkas were always "boy," always remembered in the back of the Harbinger's mind as mewling babes brought in under Jergen's arm. Motherless, fatherless, in need of protection. Surprisingly, he didn't mind. With Jergen gone, Kodlak was the closest thing they had to a father—to any family.

"Farkas sent me, Harbinger," he said.

"Yes," Kodlak said, and gestured to the chair opposite his. "Sit down, Vilkas."

Vilkas sat, feeling a growing sense of unease about the direction of this conversation. Farkas' uncharacteristic moodiness did not bode well… And he could smell the exhaustion rolling off of Kodlak in sour waves; he didn't even need enhanced senses to see the sag of his shoulders, the hollowness of his cheeks. A sad ruin of a once-proud man. A great warrior. _So too do we all fall to dust._

He watched Kodlak's huge hands absently smoothing out the vellum sheets of the book, the old man unaware of their movement. Eventually, he gathered himself enough to look up, his clouded eyes meeting Vilkas' straight on. "Vilkas," he said. "Do you ever allow yourself to contemplate your death?"

Vilkas blinked—six or seven in the morning was not the time he usually felt prepared for such philosophical questions. He couldn't even begin to imagine how Farkas had reacted—for as much as he loved his brother, the man could be a little…slow. "At times," he replied, cautiously.

"I've thought of it more often, these days," Kodlak said. Though diminished in appearance, his voice was still confident, strong. Closing your eyes you could almost picture him as he was. "I can feel the rot advancing." He made a noise more like a growl than a sigh, a noise of choked frustration. "It's not the end I had envisioned for myself, as a young man. That much I can tell you now. I'd thought to die in battle, an honorable death."

"You can't help it if your opponents just aren't up to the challenge, old man," Vilkas replied dryly.

Kodlak chuckled, but it was a laugh without much humor in it. "Perhaps, boy, perhaps." Another long pause stretched between them, Kodlak breaking it by setting out two small mugs and pouring a splash Whiterun whisky into each. He nudged one of them towards Vilkas, who raised his eyebrows. Kodlak had never been as much of a drinker as some of the Companions, and certainly never this early in the morning.

"Jokes aside, boy, have you ever thought about _what_ would happen after your death?" Kodlak said, downing the whisky in one go.

Vilkas followed suit, the harsh liquid burning his throat. Ulferth War-Bear of Warmaiden's distilled it out behind the forge and it always had a suspiciously metallic tang. "Don't really think about it anymore," he said slowly. "Not after…Joining the Circle." Just repeating the words brought back the brief flashes of memory of his first transformation: the salt and metal of Jergen's blood in his throat, the unexpected liquid pain of his bones breaking and melting and reforming themselves—bigger, stronger. Monstrous.

Kodlak's rheumy eyes fixed sharply on Vilkas' face. "I knew you'd understand. That's the problem. What happens after one dies. After joining the Circle." He looked down at the book again, and shook his head. "We are then claimed by Hircine, for his hunting grounds. An eternity of them."

Most of the Companions were Nords, and most of them had looked forward to an afterlife in Sovngarde with their ancestors, with Ysgramor and the rest of the Companions long laid to rest. Vilkas, who had always felt distanced from his own past, had guardedly assumed that he too would one day join those nameless grey faces, but that was before he had learned the true nature of the Circle, of the curse of the Companions. Or the gift, if one asked Aela or Skjor, who had always taken to the beast-blood with more gusto than any of the others. He hadn't thought that Kodlak would get so sentimental when faced with his death, but eternity was no laughing matter.

"I do not want a filthy Daedra playing games with my soul for the rest of existence," Kodlak was saying. "I must join my ancestors, and Ysgramor, in Sovngarde, the spirit-home. I've tried to be an honorable man throughout my time on Nirn, and…" He trailed off, pouring himself another drink. "Vilkas, were you ever told the story, the true story, of why the Circle must take the beast-blood?"

First his stomach sank, and then he could feel the comforting, warm threads of anger moving through him. Whatever came next, he knew it was not going to be something he wanted to hear. "No, Harbinger," he said curtly. "Jergen told me only that it was the burden the Circle must bear, to become truly great warriors."

Kodlak smiled, grim, and shook his head. "That's what he would tell you. The reality is more complicated…this matter of beast blood has only troubled us for a few hundred years. And you yourself know how much _history_ the Companions have than that…" He finished the drink again. "It all began with Terrfyg, who made a short-sighted choice that doomed the rest of us. He made a bargain with the witches of Glenmoril, that if we would hunt in the name of their Lord, Hircine—great power would become ours. Terrfyg accepted this bargain, not believing the change permanent, not knowing that it would seep into his spirit…" He paused and made that sighing growl again, now almost a rattle. A cough wracked him. "The Companions have passed on this Curse, unable to stop it. But this is not how it need be. This is not how it _must_ be. I am searching…I have been searching…for a cure."

Vilkas sat back in the chair, silent. Those small threads of rage were building, a wildfire rushing through him. "Then all of this—a lie? The Circle? My life? My brother's life? This isn't how things are _supposed_ to be?" He stood up from the chair, too abruptly—it fell behind him, clattering to the floor as he forced himself away from the table. "Did you tell him, too? Did he just accept this like nothing had ever happened?" Part of his fury was directed at Jergen and Kodlak, for saddling him with this part of himself that he was terrified to lose, and part of it was at Farkas, who had clearly been able to acclimate himself to this new development. Vilkas knew that if Kodlak had told him first, there would have been no calm sunrise in _his_ heart. Not after finding that the last fifteen years of his life had been based upon lies.

"Vilkas!" Kodlak said sharply, sounding once more like the true leader they had known for over two decades. "You're not a child any longer. Stop acting like one. I do this for your own good. To see you and the rest of the Circle in Sovngarde, as you _should_ be, when the time is right."

He couldn't help the wolfish growl that escaped his throat, though it shamed him at the same time. These days, when the rage gripped him, it was sometimes harder to ignore the lurking beast-blood, the darker parts of himself that emerged in the light of the moon. All of this—the overwhelming noises, smells, the pain of the transformations—something he felt he must do in order to remain with the Companions, his only family—something he had accepted as a matter of this life, and the next—in vain?

"Your forgiveness, Harbinger," he managed to choke out. "It is just—"

"I know," Kodlak said. The thin smile on his face now seemed more sad than anything else, the smile of a father who has disappointed his children. "Vilkas, I have had such dreams… I have seen the line of Harbingers, beginning with Ysgramor. Each of them ascends to the glory of Sovngarde—until Terrfyg. He tries to enter, to follow his predecessors, but before even approaching Tsun, he is set upon by a great wolf, pulling and rending him, taking him to the Hunting Grounds, where Hircine laughs… Then I see _every next Harbinger_ turn away from Sovngarde and enter the Hunting Grounds of their own accord. Until it is my turn—and I see great Tsun, on the horizon, beckoning to me. I have a _choice_…" He looked down again, sighing a long, tired sigh.

"This is—much to take in," Vilkas said, finally.

"Take the time to think about it, then, before you let me know what you would do, if you would seek the cure with myself and your brother—"

"_My brother_?" Vilkas demanded.

"Yes," Kodlak said, with disgusting calm, "He has agreed to cease his transformations, as I have done, until the cure is found."

Vilkas swallowed his fury—Farkas didn't make life-changing decisions like that without him. Everything they did, they decided _together_—or Vilkas decided for them, when Farkas couldn't make up his mind. This—everything about this was wrong. "Harbinger," he said. "I must take the time to think about this first."

"Of course," said Kodlak Whitemane. "I will tell the rest of the Circle, in the right time. We will face this new challenge together."

"Harbinger," Vilkas said, inclining his head in a bow, "I will think on it."

Leaving the Harbinger's quarters felt like a retreat.

Vilkas felt like he wanted to kill something.


	3. Wolves

_There came to the dwellings a wandering maid,  
>with wayworn feet, and sunburned arms,<br>with down-bent nose,—the Bond-maid named._

-The Poetic Edda, _Rigsþula_, translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>When she emerged from the depths of Helgen Keep, blinking at the sudden brilliance of the light, Sigrid had with her: one temporary traveling companion, one skinned bear pelt, one set of bloody Stormcloak armor that pinched her in uncomfortable places, one sword, one longbow, one coin purse, and three moldy cabbages in a sack. Hadvar had been horrified that she wanted to take the time to skin the bear, especially after he had initially recommended sneaking around it, but Sigrid pointed out that she had nothing in this world at all, while he was returning to his family. She'd need to make a bit of coin <em>somehow<em>, and considering her current appearance, it certainly wasn't going to be by tempting anyone into bed. He'd spluttered at that, offended and embarrassed, partially because of the boldness of the words and partially because it was true, but he was too polite to say so.

"There's no need to go walking around like a Khajit caravan, I'm sure my Uncle Alvor would help you on your way," Hadvar protested, "After all, you've helped save my life—the dragon, and the spiders—"

"Yes," Sigrid said shortly, "I don't take charity if I can help it." Help. Charity. All the same. All just signs of weakness that would eventually get you killed. If she had learned one thing in her travels, it was that relying on other was a dangerous mistake, one she would not soon make again. For now, though, she followed Hadvar along the road to Riverwood, limping as she went.

_This _homecoming felt more like she had imagined, despite the moldy cabbages. She found herself examining trees, flowers, the beautiful, burbling river. Even the mudcrabs (horrible creatures) didn't bother her. At one point she even snatched a lazy butterfly clear out of the air and laughed, delighted. Skyrim seemed like some kind of fantasyland, although she couldn't tell whether that was her memory gilding it with that unnatural beauty or if the forests of Falkreath Hold were just that lovely.

_Listen to you_, she thought sardonically, _at this rate,_ _you'll be plucking a lute in a tavern somewhere before the month is out._

Further down the road they came across three ancient stones, just off the path, arranged in a circle. Though they looked as though they'd been there forever, no moss covered them. She could smell the magic on them, ancient and warm, like the hot wind on an Elseweyri dune. The carvings indicated the blessings conferred: warrior, thief, mage. It couldn't hurt, could it, to ask for a little luck, after everything that had happened? She pressed her hands against the Warrior Stone, and gasped as the unexpected warmth burnt her hands. When she pulled them away, however, the skin was unblemished. _Magic_, she thought, uncomfortably. Like any true Nord she had an innate distrust of wizards, but surely the ancient standing stones were different.

"Good choice," Hadvar said approvingly.

"Sod off," Sigrid muttered, uncomfortable with the companionable way he was treating her. She could not forget, quite yet, that for all his sympathy and friendliness, he would have stood and watched while the axe bit at her neck. Of course, she would have done the same. Funny thing, human feelings.

She felt a little better when, after hearing the tell-tale howls shivering on the wind, they were attacked by wolves. As always she felt that she knew where she stood during a fight. Let Hadvar fend for himself. With a short battle cry, she pulled that pathetic sword from the belted sheath and faced the wolf, turning as it attempted to flank her. "Come on, puppy," she growled, "Go for the—" Snarling, the wolf lunged for her, and in two smooth movements, she smashed it in the face with her shield and then slammed the blade into its skull. The wolf went down like a stone, whimpering on the road, before it shuddered and died.

Hadvar, who had dispatched the second wolf, too, met her eyes. "Nice work. And if you'll excuse me, I'm eager to get home. I'm not wasting _any_ time skinning these mangy things."

Sigrid wiped the sword clean on the matted pelt of the dead wolf, and examined the Imperial soldier with all of the dignity she could muster. "That won't be bloody necessary, thanks very much."

Alvor and his wife, also named Sigrid, turned out to be just as uncomfortably accommodating as Hadvar. She felt strange and uneasy accepting their food and bathing in their home. But the bath, at least, was necessary. The bath was set up behind a small screen in the corner, and she undressed quickly behind it. As soon as she lowered herself into the water, heated at the forge and brought inside by their daughter Dorthe, she groaned as her bruised limbs relaxed and the filth of several weeks' travel and battle began to dissolve. At the end, the water was black with dirt, and she was too embarrassed to ask for another filling. She'd just have to go swimming in the river tomorrow, despite the cold. For now, however, she was eager to get on her way. The other Sigrid was already eyeing her with suspicion, though Sigrid couldn't imagine why—it wasn't as though she was the type of woman to tempt a man away from his lovely wife. But there was no accounting for the paranoia born of love.

After helping Alvor at the forge for a little extra coin and using that money, and the Stormcloak armor she'd looted, Sigrid possessed a marginally better set of iron armor and a sharpened sword devoid of rust. She thought longingly, nonetheless, of the armor she had lost, lovingly crafted by her own hand. Beautiful steel plate, carved painstakingly with protective runes and buffed and shined to perfection. Her sword, perfectly balanced in her hand, just the right combination of weight and speed. All gone. Probably in some Imperial Quartermaster's clutches. He'd be a fool not to sell them; for all they were fitted for a woman, it had been beautiful gear. _Stop it,_ she admonished herself. If she spent too much time mourning for what she had lost, she would never get anything done. It took her a moment to realize that she'd felt worse about losing her armor and sword than she had certain companions in the past. _Sigrid, you are a terrible person_.

Before she took her leave, Alvor gestured for her to follow him outside. "Thank you again, lass, for all you've done for our family."

"Er, don't mention it," Sigrid said, running her hand over her short-cropped hair as she always did when something embarrassed her.

"Would you mind doing us one last favor?" the blacksmith asked anxiously. "You survived the dragon attack but I think you and Hadvar might have been the only ones. He's got to go to Solitude to warn the Legion, but the Jarl of Whiterun needs to know. He's a good man. He'll send aid—here in Riverwood, we're fairly unprotected."

"Yes—yes, of course," Sigrid said, partially just so he would stop talking and stop looking at her with those anxious hound's eyes, so similar to Hadvar's. And partially so that, by doing this favor, she could wipe out any lingering sense of obligation she felt to this family. So she would never have to look back and think of them.

Alvor clasped her rough-skinned, scarred hand in a firm handshake, and nodded sharply. "You're a good woman. Skyrim needs more like you."

"You're very, very wrong there," Sigrid said, pulling her hand away. "But thank you. You and your family. For your kindness." The words dried awkwardly on her tongue, and instead she muttered, "Talos watch over you." It was the most sincere blessing she could give, and yet, if anyone had heard her say it—suffice to say, they'd both be in a good deal of trouble.

Hadvar came outside to say his goodbyes as well. "Come find me in Solitude," he said, clasping her shoulder. They were a touchy bunch, these Riverwooders, Sigrid thought sourly. "I'll put in a good word for you. Surely that little mix-up at Helgen won't be too much of a mark against you. Legion really could use everything it can get."

"I'll think about it," Sigrid said honestly. They might have tried to chop her head off, yes, but she _had_ been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And she could not and would never agree with the White-Gold Concordat, but the sheer fact of the matter remained that Skyrim alone could never hold back the Aldmeri Dominion. She had seen too much on her travels to think that the Stormcloaks could stand alone against…no. With a stone face, she bid her goodbyes to Hadvar and started down on the road again. It would not do too well to think so closely about the past mistakes, friends lost. Blood drawn.

It looked as though she was headed to Whiterun. She hoped that this Jarl Balgruuf would prove to be more open to reasoning than General Tullius.

* * *

><p>Vilkas had killed a few things that morning, which usually made him feel better, but seemed to have done nothing to put a dent in the absolutely foul mood that had knotted his shoulders up since the day before. It remained as he and Aela stormed the gates of yet another local bandit cave they'd been hired to clear, he with his greatsword, she picking off sentries with her deadly rain of arrows. It remained as he stabbed a bandit in the throat with his sword and the man's blood sprayed in his face. It remained as he lowered the sword and kicked the corpse in the stomach so that it fell away from his blade and onto the ground in an ungainly heap. It remained as he whirled to face the bandit's friend, who had tried and failed to sneak up on him. It remained as he used his sword to block the attempted blow from a warhammer, slid back a step, and smashed the bandit's skull open with his greatsword.<p>

Normally, that would have at least made him smile a _little_.

He still felt like killing things.

But there were no bandits left to kill. There was only the dank cave, lichens, and dripping stone walls. And the bodies.

Aela the Huntress lowered her bow and looked at him. "You look like you're in a foul mood. Why? That was a good kill." She strolled over to the pair of corpses he'd laid out on the ground, and examined his handiwork admiringly. "A very good kill, actually."

"No reason," Vilkas said. If she had yet to speak to Kodlak, he wasn't going to ruin her week. Somehow, he couldn't imagine Aela taking the news very well, either. She was the one Companion who seemed most suited to the beast blood. Her mother was a Companion. And her mother; and all the women of her family back to Hrotti Blackblade, as she would tell anyone who'd care to listen. Even if she had not had the wolf inside her, there would have been something primal and vicious about her movements. Always the hunter, he knew that Hircine's hunting grounds must truly seem like a paradise to her.

Aela seemed unconvinced as she shook her head and then went back to stalking about the small cave, pulling her arrows out of the corpses. "I'll figure it out eventually," she threatened. "Your brother's acting strangely, too, and I don't like secrets." The arrows, cleaned, were slipped back into her quiver, and a predatory smile appeared on her face. "And Farkas isn't exactly _good_ at keeping secrets."

"Leave him out of this," Vilkas growled. She might have been a shield-sister, but sometimes Aela could be incredibly insufferable, getting her nose on a scent and refusing to let go.

Aela merely quirked her brows at him, and made an almost prim nose—it would have been prim, coming from anyone but Aela. "We'll see how long this lasts, Shield-Brother. Secrets get Companions killed, and I intend to hunt on this plane for many seasons more before joining Lord Hircine." With that last parting shot, she turned around and loped for the front of the cave. "Come on, there's no use in hanging around here—they didn't even have anything worth taking! Better to just collect the bounty and move on."

Vilkas, glowering, followed her back into the daylight.

* * *

><p>The city of Whiterun loomed above her, well-fortified walls set up on a hill in the middle of a broad, grassy plain. The Jarl's palace dominated the city's skyline, a brooding, beautiful spire, and dotted around the walls were mills and small farms. The city itself was a beautiful sight to a weary traveler's eyes: visions of a comfortable inn bed danced in her head, a place to spend the last of her meager coin before finding someone in need of a hired sword. Perhaps she would stay here for a short time, until she had gotten the shattered remnants of her life in some semblance of order. There was a stark beauty to the scrubland, surrounded by mountains, that appealed to her. The air smelled sweet.<p>

Approaching the gates, she found a small caravan of Khajit traders camped outside. They seemed wary at first, but after ascertaining that she was not going to attack, they warmed up a bit. In return for news of Elsweyr, which none of them had visited for some time, they gave her a few coins. It was not much, but the conversation, that had dredged up some fond memories, warmed her as much as the inn's rented room would.

The guard at the gate was not so friendly. No sooner had she approached but she was stopped, by a man little more than a boy, scowling furiously at her as though she had tried to personally storm the gates. "Halt! City's closed with the dragons about. Official business only."

Sigrid adjusted her posture in an attempt to appear as unthreatening as possible. "I _am_ on official business. I have news from Helgen about the dragon attack."

She could see the guard weighing the options and finally he scowled. "You better go in. But I'll be keeping an eye on you," he said threateningly. "So you better not go fiddling with any locks."

Sigrid swallowed her pride, just for the moment, and shot him a death glare, cursing him to Oblivion—though in silence. The gates of Whiterun were open to her. Now it was time to speak to a Jarl about a dragon.

* * *

><p>Vilkas and Aela had waited, with little patience, for Avenicci to finish his official business and see to paying out their bounty. Neither Companion was over-fond of the court scenes. Aela found the manners and formality required restrictive; Vilkas merely found them boring, especially Hrongar, whose boasting disgusted him. A human weapon indeed. Once, when he'd been slightly into his cups, he'd challenged Hrongar to a fight. A gentleman's brawl, of course, only to first blood. The man still glowered every time Vilkas had the temerity to enter the grand hall of Dragonsreach. <em>Ah well,<em> he thought, with a smugness that was unbecoming of a warrior, _suppose no one likes being reminded of abject humiliation_.

Today, he suspected that Hrongar had a hand in Avenicci's particular slowness. Aela was already fidgeting, her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl slashing across her lovely face. For the courtier's sake, he rather hoped that this would resolve itself quickly, for Aela in a temper could be dangerous. Though Vilkas' fury burned just as bright when stoked, he couldn't help worry about the lasting implications of driving his fist into the Jarl's steward in front of the Divines, the Court, and everyone.

"What is _taking so long_," Aela hissed at him, "Do they not understand that we are _busy people_?"

Vilkas shrugged and sat down on the edge of the long table. "Might as well settle in. I'm not sure what's taking so long, but we're not leaving without those septims." He watched, half interested, from the corner of his eye as Irileth and Avenicci argued back and forth about some matter of state that did not interest the Companions.

He heard the great, heavy creak of the doors of the keep, a noise like rumbling stones. Suddenly, Irileth bounded from the Jarl's dais, scowling, her hand on the sword at her hip. "What's the meaning of this interruption?" she demanded, her measured, accented tones furious. "Jarl Balgruuf is _not_ receiving visitors."

"Alvor sent me," the woman answered, her voice husky and low-pitched. "Riverwood is in danger."

With a voice like that, he would have expected a beauty. The reality was quite different—and no one could have been further from beauty. She was tall, probably at least as tall as he, if not perhaps an inch taller. Broad of shoulder, flat of chest, and narrow of waist and hip, she was unfashionably muscled and scarred. Brown hair cropped short, almost shaved. Her nose, long and broad, had been broken several times and crookedly healed. Bars of black war paint framed her eyes and extended across her cheekbones; a broad, wide-lipped mouth set stubbornly in a frown as she faced Irileth in the middle of the hall, totally unconcerned by the imposing Dunmer woman. Her mouth, and part of her nose, were slashed through by scars that looked as though a sabre cat had taken its claws to her face. She walked with a swagger, but wore a rather battered looking set of iron armor and carried the saddest excuse for a sword that Vilkas had ever seen—if she was an adventurer or a mercenary, she was certainly a poor one if that was the best she could afford. And her smell—Vilkas' nostrils flared in distaste, even from this distance, he could tell she hadn't had access to a thorough washing for quite some time.

"As housecarl, my job is to deal with all dangers that threaten the Jarl or his people. You have my attention. _Explain yourself_."

"A dragon destroyed Helgen," the woman said, looking at the floor, almost as though embarrassed—not about her appearance, because she certainly held herself confidently enough the rest of the time—about the situation?

"You know about Helgen? The Jarl will want to speak to you personally. Approach."

"Ysgramor's balls," Aela growled, "Now we're never going to get out of here."

"Patience," Vilkas said. "It might work to our favor that we're here. We'll have to speak to Kodlak about this, but there may be some money to be made from this dragon business, if it's true. And if it's not just the skooma dream of some vagrant, just think—what better prey for you to hunt?"

Aela gave him a small, sideways smile and murmured, "You always know just what to say, shield-brother."

The woman walked towards the dais, her shoulders thrown back, as though daring anyone to say a damn thing about her scruffy appearance, or her rather outlandish claim to know anything about dragons—which were children's tales, everyone knew that. She looked Jarl Balgruuf up and down as though taking his measure; evidently finding him satisfactory, she stood at military attention, legs planted firmly and arms folded behind her back. Vilkas raised his eyebrows, surprised.

"So. You were at Helgen? You saw this dragon with your own eyes?" Balgruuf asked, deceptively at ease—though he lounged in the chair like a ruler with few concerns, Vilkas could smell the anxiety he hid from view.

The woman met Balgruuf's eye squarely. "Yes. It destroyed the city. By the time I managed to escape through the ruins of the Keep with a legionnaire, it was flying away—this way." What had she been doing in the Keep in the first place? This woman looked as though she'd been chewed up and spit out by the god of battles, but not like a legionnaire.

Jarl Balgruuf, however, had other concerns. "By Ysimir! Irileth was right. What do you saw now, Proventus? Shall we continue to trust in the strength of our walls? Against a dragon?"

"My lord, we should send troops to Riverwood at _once_. It is in _immediate_ danger. With the dragon lurking in the mountains—" Irileth interrupted.

Avenicci, slow and careful as always, was horrified by the suggestion, and hastily cut in, waving his hands in a panic. "The Jarl of Falkreath will view that as a provocation! He'll assume we're preparing to join Ulfric's side and attack him! We should not—!"

Jarl Balgruuf's voice cut across the arguments. "Enough! I'll not stand idly by while a dragon burns my hold and slaughters my people! Irileth, send a detachment to Riverwood at once."

"Yes, my Jarl!"

"If you'll _excuse me, _I'll return to my duties," Avenicci muttered, sulking away. Aela brightened instantly and broke away from Vilkas to try and corner the steward before he could escape into more busy work.

"That would be best," the Jarl said coldly, before turning to the scruffy woman. "Well done. You sought me out, on your own initiative. You've done Whiterun a service, and I won't forget it. Please take this armor as a small token of my esteem." He waved his hand for a servant to bring a steel chest plate, approximately woman-sized. Vilkas snorted. For a normal woman, anyway. Her eyes had already lit up with the glee of a small child waiting for a birthday present.

The Jarl was talking to her again, "There is another thing you could do for me—suitable for someone of your—particular talents, perhaps? Come, let's find Farengar, my court wizard. He's been looking into a matter related to these dragons and rumors of dragons." He led the adventurer away towards Farengar's "offices," leaving Vilkas standing and waiting for Aela.

_Take your time_, he thought silently. For as soon as they left, he needed to talk to his brother.

Vilkas sighed. The foul mood had returned again, and he didn't even have anything to take it out upon.


	4. Words

_Too many unstable words are spoken  
>by him who ne'er holds his peace;<br>the hasty tongue sings its own mishap  
>if it be not bridled in.<em>

—The Poetic Edda, _Hávamál_, translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>After he and Aela took their leave of Avenicci, gold in hand, Vilkas stormed down the long stairs from Dragonsreach and and into the halls of Jorrvaskr, throwing the door aside with a loud <em>bang<em>. "Where's Farkas?" he demanded of Njada Stone-Arm, seated at the long table and idly reading a book and sipping a mug of ale.

"How should I know?" she shot back. "I'm not his keeper or his bed-mate."

Vilkas, though he knew in the back of his head that he was being unreasonable, snarled at her and stalked down the stairs into the living quarters. The cool stone walls did nothing to calm his temper, and as he shoved the door to Farkas' living quarters open, he could hear the contents of the shelves rattling. Fortunately, or unfortunately, his brother was nowhere to be found within the living quarters. On instinct, Vilkas avoided Kodlak's quarters—he knew the old man would not approve of the temper.

Eventually, he found Farkas out on the training grounds, dressed in full armor and practicing sword forms. The huge greatsword, almost taller than his already giant brother, looked as though it weighed as little as a feather as he swept through the motions, parries and attacks flowing into one another. As he pivoted, turning to face an imaginary enemy, his sword met Skyforge steel. Farkas' mild eyes didn't even flicker in surprise as he faced his brother on the training grounds, the two of them now in a practiced but deadly dance. None of the Companions practiced with _toy_ weapons, but a false move could mean blood spilled on the Jorrvaskr grass.

"Hello, brother," said Farkas, parrying Vilkas' furious slash. "Didn't see you there."

"When were you going to tell me?" Vilkas demanded. The sword flew up, the jarring impact between them reverberating down his arms.

"Kodlak wanted to tell you himself."

"And when were you going to tell me that you're—not going to Change any more? That you're just going to _ignore_ the call of the blood?"

"In time. After Kodlak had told you."

"By Ysmir! And you—simply accept this. That everything—that _everything_?—was for naught?"

The dance between them would have been deadly for anyone except the twins, anyone who knew his opponent a fraction less closely than Farkas knew Vilkas. For this might have been a fight on the practice ground, but Vilkas did not give him any quarter: had Farkas dropped the blade just an inch, the steel of the greatsword would have bitten into his shoulder, his face, his stomach. Vilkas knew this, of course, but he also knew that Farkas would never make the mistake of misreading the motions of his arms, the small tells in the corner of his eyes. And he was too furious to stop.

"You could look at it that way," Farkas said with that maddening calm.

"How else would you look at it?" Vilkas demanded, still moving in a flurry of attacks that, with the weight of his sword, would soon turn his arms to lead. But he could not think of slowing, could not think of stopping. Without this motion, without this _fight_, he could not articulate the emotions that threatened to choke his heart and lungs with fury.

Farkas somehow managed to shrug while swinging the sword to block again. It was only then that Vilkas realized he had never once gone on the offensive. Not surprising. "Why look at it any way?" he said. "Kodlak thinks it's better for us. I'd like to see Sovngarde one day. What's there to look at?"

"It doesn't—" Vilkas ground out between his teeth, as he took a step back from the battle, though he did not allow the sword to drop. It remained, steady, pointed at Farkas' head. "It doesn't _bother you_? That they lied to us? That all of this—becoming the way we are—wasn't—"

"Figure they must've had a reason for it," Farkas said.

The calm acceptance enraged him so much that he closed the distance between them again, the swords meeting with a clash of metal, straining against each other. Farkas had always been bigger and stronger than he, but Vilkas more furious, angrier—now, in a close contest, his muscles strained against the pressure, but neither weapon dropped. "That," he growled, "Is because you're a bloody _idiot_ who doesn't think beyond what he's fucking _told_."

At those words, Farkas abruptly stepped away from him, and Vilkas lost his balance at the unexpected shift in the world. It infuriated him, how Farkas never seemed to lose his temper, even now. "No need for that, brother."

He already knew he'd gone too far, but it was too late, now, to take back those words. The shame burned in him, bright and hot. "I'm going," Vilkas said. "Don't know when I'll be back. Tell the Harbinger to give my jobs to you. Or Aela." He had to clear his head. Remaining in Jorrvaskr wasn't going to help, not when his brother and Kodlak served as constant reminders of the terrible decision he was going to be forced to make, whether he wanted to or not. Remaining in Jorrvaskr, watching his brother cheerfully accept this new order, the way he always did, unflappable and strong.

He needed fresh air.

* * *

><p>The next few days were a whirl of dungeons and spiders and dead things and bandits. The stuffy court wizard, with his disdainful sniffs and stare down the edge of his nose, had sent her on a fool's errand to some barrow in Falkreath. After spending the night recuperating in a shabby room in the Bannered Mare, Sigrid had strapped on her armor and set off for the ruins.<p>

The first time she encountered one of the draugr, she killed it easily enough, but then retreated to the corner of the room to vomit as it collapsed. Oh, her father had told her the stories when she was a child, like anyone: _don't play 'round the crypts or the draugr will eat you up_, but in all of her travels across Tamriel, working a steady pattern to avoid her old home, she had never seen their like. So many strange things she had seen over the years, panthers as huge as horses in Elsweyr, the mysterious swamps of the Black Marsh—but never those withered, shambling corpses with their dulled swords, deadly nevertheless.

She stood, after that first time, and wiped her mouth. Stared into the darkness of the barrow. Not that she was frightened: just…disgusted. They smelled faintly still of rot, of death, even though the flesh had all but withered from their limbs. Even her father had heard different stories about them, why they'd taken to walking around instead of staying dead. Cannibalism, betraying their countrymen to the dragon priests. None of it mattered now. All that mattered was that they were not fully dead, but that she was going to make them that way.

Eventually she managed to get a sort of rhythm fighting them: bash its face in with her shield and she it staggered, chop inelegantly with the sword. They were not intelligent opponents; the trick was to avoid being swarmed by dead bodies screaming "Sovngarde saraan!" In groups, they could become a little trickier. Once she had had to swig from the bottle of healing potions she'd found in the bandit lair outside of the barrow, and even so, she'd collected a few new gashes on her limbs. Bind them up and move on. The spider had actually been much worse—she shuddered again, thinking of the small, beady, almost glassine eyes as it attacked her wildly, the bite of the poison as it splattered against her armor.

_Welcome home, Sigrid Frostborn_, she thought to herself, as the spider shuddered and died, its weight knocking her to the filthy ground.

She didn't even feel a bit sorry about killing the Dunmer thief; she had a feeling if she left him, she'd suddenly find herself confronted with a pair of elf-made daggers in the dark, winding halls of the burrow. One less thing to worry about until she found Farengar's Dragonstone and got the hell out of here. Hopefully it'd pay well. Well enough, anyway, to get her back on her feet. Carefully, she looted the body and found a golden dragon's claw with three symbols carved upon it. Ever practical, she slid the thing into her pack: even if it wasn't necessary to open the door, like Arvel's journal seemed to think, she could always sell it upon reaching Whiterun.

Just when the tunnels were starting to blur into an interminable mess of dead bodies lunging for her and slimy walls dripping with the condensation of the years she came up short against a heavy iron door. She squinted at the markings on the turning mechanisms and sighed—they matched exactly against the markings on the golden claw she had taken from the Dunmer's body. Not exactly the most _complicated_ puzzle, but like any true Nord, Sigrid knew that the doors were not in place to keep outsiders _out_, but the dead _in_.

As she set the claw against the key slot, she knew, with a sinking feeling, that there would be something unpleasant waiting behind the door.

Much to her surprise, nothing attacked her. Also to her surprise, the chamber was breathtaking. The cave's high ceiling gave it the appearance of an ancient cathedral, down to the shafts of light dancing with dust motes that shone through cracks in the rock. Gushing waterfalls, the end result of an underground river, emptied out on either side of a broad alter, centered by a coffin and a curved wall, carved with ancient runes. Twin fires still burned in the lamps on either side of the coffin, so she tread carefully when entering the chamber. There had been enough unpleasant surprises already today. If the Dragonstone would be hidden anywhere, it was probably in the coffin, or perhaps the chest that sat next to it. Her fingers itched to go through it.

As she approached the altar, something strange happened: it started as she approached, the faintest hint of a whisper, the chanting of male voices in a choir, a hint of music shivering behind it. The closer she got to the wall, moving up the steps cautiously, sword and shield at the ready, the noise grew louder, this time accompanied by a crackling, like a fire burning in the wilderness, or a funeral pyre. The voices swelled until they were almost shouting in triumph. Every instinct screamed for her to run, that this was unnatural, some kind of foul magic that might trap her here, enthralled by the runes, which had begun to glow, an icy blue that burnt. Some unknown urge compelled her forward, though, until she stood in front of the wall, her nose almost pressed against the stones. She couldn't look away.

From the wall, the icy blue lines of magic whipped out, trapping her. Despite the burning cold, wherever they touched her, she felt warmed. The word swelled in her vision until she could see nothing else, and though she did not know what the runes meant, the word _FUS_ echoed in her head, the chanting voices repeating it over and over again. She knew that, no matter how she tried, that word would always be burnt into her. It had seeped beneath her skin. Inscribed itself in her brain. She fought the urge to vomit as her body protested against the intrusion of ancient, alien knowledge, but in the end, everything settled. She took a deep breath.

No sooner had she managed to tear herself away from the word than another sound caught her attention: the crack and slide of stone on stone, and the rough growl that said: undead.

Whirling to face the threat, Sigrid found another draugr, slowly rising from its coffin with the greatsword raised. Still moving slowly after waking, sluggishly, the draugr turned its attention to her, the glowing blue of its eyes uncomfortably similar to the wall of words that had trapped her against her will. "…Ro dah!" it shrieked at her, in a voice that echoed of dank stone caverns and ice creeping over graves, waving the sword in a wordless challenge.

Sigrid, never one to wait for an opponent to go on the offensive, took the opportunity to rush in and stab at the thing's head, trying to get at the gap in its helmet, perhaps through one of its eyes. The damned dull sword she had to work with would never be effective, not with the slashing, whirling attacks she normally preferred. She was going to have to get creative, using the shield to bash the draugr in the face whenever it swung back to attack her, retreating in the meantime to a safer place: back against the rune wall.

"...Ro dah!" the draugr screamed again, and she felt some invisible force pummeling her.

Sigrid staggered slightly, shocked, before catching her balance and yelling back at the undead monster. "That the best you got, buddy? That's all? My old grandmother hits harder than you! Yes! You!"

If the draugr could hear her words, it gave no indication. No change in the slow but inexorable pattern of blood-chilling shriek, surprisingly nimble move forward, and hacking slashes that numbed her arm whenever she caught them on her shield. How long they went, back and forth, back and forth, she had no idea. At times it seemed forever; at times it seemed

"You're a little predictable, you know," Sigrid panted, "You could switch things up a little bit. Maybe a shield bash. A kick. Anything. But you're just a damned dusty pile of bones so what in Oblivion do _I_ know?" She slid sideways, avoiding the draugr's attempts to hem her in against a corner, and finally, bulled forward with the last of her strength and, with muscles screaming, swung the sword in a sideways chop that lopped the draugr's head clean off.

As it collapsed to the ground, so did Sigrid, gasping for air. _Getting too old for this shit?_ she thought sardonically to herself. Perhaps it was time to settle down, so she had somewhere to rest her weary bones between adventures. But there was no time for that now. After gathering control of herself, she crouched over the dragur's body, laid to eternal rest, and searched through its armor. Tucked within the chest plate was a heavy stone tablet, which she turned over in her hands, examining both sides. The front seemed to be some kind of a map, dotted with carved stars along the outlines of mountains, a menacing dragon's head at the bottom. The back had sentences written in the same runes that decorated the wall, and for a moment, Sigrid felt the creeping fear that she would be seized again by whatever alien force had trapped her at the wall. But there was nothing: no alien intelligence, no magic, and the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding hissed from her mouth.

Too exhausted to continue on to Whiterun right away, she spent that night camped out on the narrow ledge behind the barrow, hoping that the height would keep away the wolves. She'd slept in worse places before; at least it was dry, if somewhat cold. She used the Dragonstone as a place to rest her head, and as she drifted off to sleep, smiled to herself as she thought of Farengar Secret-Fire's horrified expression, if he could have seen the use she made of his precious artifact.

In her sleep, she dreamed of echoing, burning words.

Of force…

* * *

><p>Vilkas spent much of the next week in his beast form, trying to answer a question that he was unable to articulate entirely. In a wolf's skin, thoughts smoothed out strangely. Things that seemed complicated as a man became less important, sublimated under the desire to run beneath the moon, to hunt, to rip apart his prey and taste the hot blood and quivering flesh as it died beneath his fangs. He thought about what he would be giving up, though because of the form he had taken it wasn't really <em>thinking<em>. He absorbed. He slept under the stars and ran during the day, though what he was running from, he couldn't quite say: Kodlak? The changes that were sure to come? His fear of letting go of something that had defined him for so long…?

He ran, and ran, and made it all the way to the western edge of Falkreath. Almost to the Reach.

Aela tracked him down a week later, while he slept sprawled under a tree, late at night, still in his beast-form. Aela herself, though most given to the transformations, had remained human. He could hear her coming, this way, though he might not have as a human: she moved through the misty Falkreath forests almost as silently as a wisp. She carried a large knapsack on her back, unusually weighted, for a woman who traveled light. His ears twitched as she approached, but he remained still, eyes closed, not letting on that he had heard her. The woman threw herself onto the ground next to him, shooting him a sideways glance.

"Shield-Brother," she said, by way of greeting.

Vilkas opened his eyes and grumbled at her, but did not rise, did not change.

"It's time to come home. There's work to be done. Prey to hunt."

A growl, this time.

"I don't know what's the matter with you," she continued, still sitting still as a stone, a tree, a mountain. "But I don't like it. We need you, Shield-Brother. Jorrvaskr calls. Whatever has driven you here, we can face it together. You and all of the Circle."

For the first time in eight days, Vilkas changed. Bones cracked and reformed. The howl of the beast slowly fading to the groan of a man. However many times he did this, it still hurt. Still rended at his soul a little bit, somehow. Maybe Kodlak was right, but he could not—would not—admit that just yet. Whatever peace he had been hoping to find in that journey had eluded him, and now he sat bare in the grass as Aela the Huntress handed him clothing she'd brought for him, totally unembarrassed by his nakedness. She'd seen him before—he'd seen her before. In a way, watching him change was a more intimate act than anything else, that nightmareish moment between man and beast, when everything mixed up the wrong way 'round.

"I don't know, Aela," Vilkas said. "I don't know, this time."


	5. Dragons

_Mighty dragon, you snorted great blasts  
>and you hardened your heart;<br>[but] men are the more ferocious…_

—The Poetic Edda, _Fafnismal_, translated by Carolyne Larrington

_That is the true mingling of kinship when you can tell  
>someone all your thoughts;<br>anything is better than to be fickle;  
>he is no true friend who only says pleasant things.<em>

—The Poetic Edda, _Hávamál_, translated by Carolyne Larrington

* * *

><p>Before they could get on their way back to Whiterun, a courier caught up with Vilkas and Aela. "Note for your eyes only," he murmured, and waited for a tip. Aela grudgingly parted with a coin for him, and Vilkas took the letter and scanned it quickly. A new contract from Skjor, acquired while Vilkas had been off, in Aela's words, having a crisis of faith. As always the Huntress came surprisingly close to the truth, too close for Vilkas to be entirely comfortable laughing off the joke. A Markarth merchant wanted them to clear out a nest of Forsworn so that he could recover a stolen family heirloom, a lucky shrine statue that had been missing for months. Sometimes Vilkas grew tired of such boring assignments, but today, he rather welcomed the chance to face a formidable enemy, and to rip them apart. Or perhaps he should consider Kodlak's request…<p>

As they packed up their small camp and began the walk to the Reach, Aela glanced sideways at him. "What _was_ all that about, Vilkas?"

"Needed some time to clear my head," he grumbled.

"It's not like you to take the beast form for so long," she retorted. "And Farkas seemed—worried."

"That blockhead? Worried?" Vilkas tried to pass the comment off with a blustery grunt of laughter, but again, Aela was not fooled. She could probably smell the same on him.

"Of course he was worried. You didn't leave things on very good terms, did you?"

Vilkas grunted again. He despised talking about his feelings, especially feelings as tender as these. It felt like Aela was kneading a fresh, painful gash beneath her fingers, gradually working her nails into the split in the skin.

"Vilkas. If you're going to spend all of your time hiding out in the wilderness, then I'm going to have to be the one to tell you that you're acting like an _ass_," Aela said bluntly, as they walked down the road.

"I'm not acting like a bloody a—"

"Be quiet and listen to me," Aela said sternly. "I don't know what's going on with you and Farkas but you've had your differences before, and he's always the one to try and make things right. It wouldn't kill you to think about things the way he thinks about them for once. And before you say anything else, I just want to tell you that I _hate_ you for making me say this at all. But if my Shield-Brothers are at odds, I can't trust you to watch my back in battle. If you're too stubborn to do this on your own, or for Farkas—let _that_ be known. If you get me killed, I will _kill_ you."

"You'd be dead," Vilkas pointed out.

"I'd find a way to come back and kill you."

He laughed for the first time in days and, surprisingly, it felt good to do so. "You would," he said admiringly. Sometimes he felt that Aela was the best of them all: all animal instinct and ferocity, tempered by _heart_. His own darker urges seemed shameful in comparison. "All right. I'll talk to Farkas when we get back to Jorrvaskr."

"Good," she said. "And if you ever, ever act like this again, so help me Hircine, I will make you sorry."

"You already made me sorry," he said dryly, "This was one of the three most uncomfortable conversations I've had this month. But thank you. Shield-Sister."

When they met the Forsworn camp, he went into battle with a fierce joy in his chest, yelling his war cry. He stayed as a man, and Aela fought as a beast. He felt connected to the sword as he had not in a long time; it moved with him, an extension of his arm. Sweeping up, and down. Meeting flesh and bone. With the sting of magic sapping his limbs, he cut down their leader, ripping the briarheart from his chest and crushing it in his hand, and he knew that he would have to make choices. But that didn't mean that _everything_ had to change…he hoped.

* * *

><p>On the way back to Whiterun, Sigrid was attacked by two bandits, three wolves, and a bear. She dispatched them all quickly, dispassionately, without any of the joy she would normally have felt in these brief battles. She looted the corpses of the bandits anyway, filling the her carrying pack to capacity with armor she planned to sell to the smith upon returning to the city. But even as she whirled to face a new road-enemy, she found herself thinking, uncomfortably, of the strange familiarity of the runes on the wall, tickling at the back of her brain, a reminder of something she still couldn't put into words.<p>

When she visited the blacksmith to unload the armor, she decided to sell her terrible rusted sword along with the rest of it, and turn the proceeds towards some good solid steel. It wasn't a frivolous expenditure, she told herself. Her future depended on it. Now she only had to shore up the rest of her armor, and avoid being captured in an ambush again. Satisfied with the trade, and her burden lighter except for the Dragonstone, Sigrid set off for Dragonsreach and the court of the Jarl.

She was dreading it, to be honest. Sigrid much preferred to fight in the middle of things, where her valor would go unnoticed except for herself, where her occasional lapses into vengeful brutality would likewise go unseen. She felt odd in the spotlight, and slightly silly: especially considering her experience at Helgen, which had mostly consisted of running for her life. Humiliating, to be praised by these pampered, pompous courtiers for one of the more shameful experiences she'd undergone recently. She could still remember the scathing looks some of them had given her, as if they'd known, the dark haired Nord warrior in the corner especially looked as though he could see right through her.

Already, she planned to hand the Dragonstone to Farengar and make a run for it. There had to be an easier way of earning a living around here—she'd heard rumblings of a mercenary's guild, and though her stomach sank at the idea, she knew that she would not be able to make it long on her own with such meager resources.

The steps to Dragonsreach seemed even longer to climb than before, the guard at the door even more suspicious. She knew she probably still stank of the tomb, though she'd tried to bath in the White River. Too cold to remain in the water for long.

This time, no Dunmer woman stopped her. The courtiers seemed preoccupied with some other business, and, extremely thankful for the opportunity, she sidled off to the side and made a bee-line for Farengar's little "offices," hoping to minimize her time spent in the castle as much as possible.

Lucky her: the lisping wizard was in residence, speaking to a woman, her face shadowed beneath her hood, wearing battered leather armor. "You see?" he was saying to her, as Sigrid approached them, "The terminology is _clearly_ First Era. Or even earlier. I'm _convinced_ this is a copy of a much older text—perhaps dating to just after the Dragon War? If so, I could use this to cross reference the names with other, later texts—" It was then that he noticed her, and his eyes lit up with unconcealed excitement. "Ah! You're back! You've found it? The Dragonstone of Bleak Falls Barrow! Seems you are a cut above the usual brutes the Jarl sends my way."

"Oh, _thank you_," Sigrid said sarcastically, reaching into her pack for the stone. It seemed to have gotten heavier, somehow, over the trip. She held it out in both hands to him. "I'm so glad to have met with your approval."

Farengar seemed totally oblivious to the tone of her voice, and instead took the Dragonstone, impatiently, like a child eager to grab possession of a new toy. "Give that to me! What if you dropped it?"

Sigrid let him take it from her hands, and then asked, "What next?" The hooded woman was examining her covertly from beneath the shelter of her clothing and her intense scrutiny made Sigrid extremely wary. Unconsciously, her hand strayed to the hilt of her sword, though of course, it was unlikely that this stranger would attack her in the middle of the Jarl's castle. But there was something lean and hungry in her look that did not bode well: Sigrid felt as though she was being dissected, like a prime cut of meat. Sized up. But to what end?

He sniffed; evidently, the man was unused to peons like Sigrid asking questions. "This is where your job ends and mine begins. The work of the mind…sadly undervalued in Skyrim." He raised his eyes heavenward, as though beseeching the Eight to have mercy on him, for his struggles, and then glanced sideways at the hooded woman. "My…associate here will be pleased to see your handiwork. She discovered its location, by means she has so far declined to share with me." Addressing her more directly, he murmured, "So, your information was correct after all. And we have our friend here to thank for recovering it for us."

The woman (a Breton, maybe?) turned to look at Sigrid again, this time, not even bothering to hide her appraisal. Though Sigrid couldn't see her eyes clearly, she could make out harsh features, the sharply cut planes of her face: a thin-lipped, frowning mouth. "You went into Bleak Falls Barrow and got that?" The tone could have been mocking, could have been admiring. Almost as if she didn't believe it, or couldn't, though she wanted to. "Just send me a copy when you've deciphered it," she said to Farengar, summarily dismissing Sigrid as though she hadn't been chopping her apart with her gaze only a moment before. And then she melted further into the background as Irileth the Housecarl came rushing over.

"Farengar!" she said. "Farengar, you must come at _once_. A dragon's been sighted nearby, your expertise will be needed." Irileth noticed then that Sigrid was still standing there, and her red eyes fixed upon her. "You should come too."

Farengar, on the other hand, thrilled to the words. "A dragon! How _exciting_! Where was it seen? What was it doing?" he demanded eagerly.

"I'd take this a bit more seriously if I were you," Irileth said, all dry words and narrowed eyes. "If a dragon decides to attack Whiterun, I don't know if we can stop it. Come. Let's go to the Jarl."

Though Sigrid did not trust the cavalier way in which her services were assumed to be available, she also could not quite pass up the opportunity before her: dragons had not been sighted on Tamriel for hundreds of years, and here was the opportunity to see one—perhaps to fight one? At the very least, there might be some gold in it for her—perhaps enough to avoid having to join any guilds. She followed Irileth up the stairs to the Jarl's personal quarters, the Dunmer taking them two at a time, her intense concentration unwavering. Sigrid could feel the coiled energy roiling off her like a taut bow, ready to snap. Bow and arrow in one body.

Balgruuf had already been alerted to the danger, and paced around the common area above the throne room. Stalking back and forth like a caged animal, as though aching to go and fight the dragon himself, held back only by his sense of responsibility to his people. Jarls could not always go haring off to face the threat with a sword and shield, and she could tell that this time, at least, it weighed heavy on his shoulders. Balgruuf's direct gaze could have bored holes through the Whiterun guard's head, another man so soon out of boyhood that Sigrid imagined he didn't have to shave very often. Unblooded, perhaps. Balgruuf said to him: "So, Irileth tells me you came from the Western Watchtower?

"Yes, m'lord," the guard replied, humbly. He sounded exhausted: not the exhaustion of the body but of sheer, total terror.

Irileth could see it, and she nipped that exhaustion, that shock in the bud, her stern voice saying more than her words: _stand straight, soldier_. "Tell him what you told me," she ordered.

The guard started; he hadn't even realized he'd been drifting towards that shocked, almost catatonic silence. "Uh…that's right. We saw it coming from the south. It was fast—faster than anything I've ever seen."

"What did it do?" Balgruuf demanded. "Was it attacking the watchtower?"

"No, my lord. It was just circling overhead when I left. I never ran so fast in my life…I thought it would come after me for sure," the guard said, voice quiet, awed. When he'd signed up for the job, Sigrid assumed, he probably thought he'd be dealing with drunks and the occasional thief or bandit, not dealing with dragons.

"Good work, son," Jarl Balgruuf said kindly. "We'll take it from here. Head down to the barracks for some food and rest, you've earned it." With that dismissal, he turned from the guard and back to Irileth, his expression hardening. "Irileth. You'd better gather some guardsmen and get down there."

"I've already ordered my men to muster near the main gate," Irileth replied.

"Good. Don't fail me."

Just as Sigrid began to think they had forgotten her, that she might have to tag like a forlorn schoolgirl after Irileth as the woman stalked out to battle, the Jarl turned to her again. "There's no time to stand on ceremony, my friend. I need your help again. I want you to go with Irileth and fight this dragon—you survived Helgen, so you have more experience with dragons than anyone else here."

Sigrid groaned, silently—would she never be allowed to forget her shame from Helgen? "Jarl Balgruuf, I would be honored to fight, but I really don't know any more about—"

He cut her off with a wave of his hand. "And I haven't forgotten the service you did for me in retrieving the Dragonstone for Farengar. As a token of my esteem, I have instructed Avenicci that you are now permitted to purchase property in the city."

Sigrid's eyes widened, and the surprise in her voice was genuine as she said, "Th-thank you, my lord." To purchase property? That would give her the opportunity to have a home base, a place of her own, somewhere to return to when she grew tired, to lick her wounds. Somewhere safe and alone, separate. This could change _everything_. She hadn't had a _home_ since leaving Winterhold, all of those years ago. Not one of her own. Temporary places, temporary bunks in mercenary companies, always with strings, with caveats: fight or die; always reliant on others for the opportunity. This—this would be _something of her own_.

"I should come along," Farengar was saying, interrupting her train of thought. "I would _greatly_ love to see this dragon."

"No. I can't afford to risk both of you," the Jarl said, shaking his head. "I need you here working on ways to defend the city against these dragons."

"As you command."

With a final warning to Irileth, to avoid charging blindly towards glory and death, they were off. Sigrid followed the Dunmer woman as she stalked purposefully down the stairs of Dragonsreach, every bit in her element, picking up stray guards as she went with a mere wave of her hand. The comfort of command that had always eluded Sigrid, made her supremely uncomfortable. Even now, being drawn into this motley group, she began to feel the old anxiety filling her. She _hated_ situations where she must work with others; too often they had ended in tragedy. She trusted her sword, and _only_ her sword.

By the main gates, Irileth surveyed the assembled guards and Sigrid with a critical eye. "Here's the situation," she said, standing to attention. "A dragon is attacking the western Watchtower."

The shocked gasps of the guards erupted along with a chorus of exclamations. "What?" "A dragon?" "_Now_ we're in for it…" The last remark earned a sharp jab in the ribs from the elbow of one of his comrades.

Irileth ignored all of them, and growled, "You heard right! I said a dragon! And I don't much care where it came from or who sent it. What I do know is that it's made a mistake of attacking Whiterun!"

"But Housecarl," one of the guards pleaded, "How can we—how can we fight a dragon?"

"By running very quickly in the other direction," Sigrid muttered under her breath.

"That's a fair question," Irileth said, shooting her a murderous gaze, "None of us have ever seen a dragon before, or expected to face one in battle. But we are honor-bound to fight, even if we fail. This dragon is threatening our homes…our families. Could you call yourself Nords if you can from this monster? Are you going to let me face this thing alone?"

Another chorus of: "No, Housecarl!" "No!" and: "We're _so_ dead…ow!"

"But it's more than our honor at stake here—think of it!—the first dragon seen in Skyrim since the last age. The glory of killing it is _ours_! If you're with me! Now what do you say?" she roared, a surprisingly deep voice coming from such a short body, "Shall we go kill us a dragon?"

The chorus this time was more affirmative; Sigrid even heard a "damn right" in there.

"Let's move out!" Irileth ordered, and ran for the gate. The guards followed her, in a steady, loping pace, Sigrid tagging along with them, though she had a bad feeling about _all_ of this.

The plains outside of Whiterun had never looked so deserted: evidently, news of the dragon had spread and the residents who lived outside of the city walls had been evacuated to the safety of the Plains District, at least. The mill still turned in the wind, though no one remained to catch the output. Sigrid looked instinctively at the sky, but only smoke drifts in the clouds gave any hint that danger lurked above. The Western Watchtower sat a short, soldierly run from the main gates of the city, and as they approached, Sigrid could see that it had been pummeled into a smoldering ruin, crumbles of stone drifting down the sides of the bowed walls. Patches of fire still burnt where the dragon'd breathed, and Sigrid had a momentary chill, thinking of how similar this looked to Helgen. How similar Whiterun could look to Helgen, and all of her hopes and dreams up in smoke with it.

"There's no signs of any dragon right now, but it sure looks like he's been here," Irileth said, all grim concentration. "I know it looks bad, but we've _got_ to figure out what happened—and if that dragon is still skulking around somewhere. Spread out and look for survivors. We need to know what we're dealing with."

"Aye, Captain," Sigrid said, secretly relieved to break off from the group. She rounded the path, jumping over a pile of rubble and walking quickly up the ramped entrance to the tower.

A guard burst from the tower, screaming at her and waving his right arm as if to warn her away. "NO! Get back! It's still here somewhere!" He was bloody and panting, his left arm hanging at an unnatural angle: she could see the bones poking whitely through his skin, and the tears ran down the vicious burns on his face. "Hroki and Tor just got grabbed when they tried to make a run for it! Oh Talos, Kynareth save us! Here he comes again!

And with a familiar, screaming shriek, a dark shadow fell from the horizon and the beating of heavy wings in the air sent a concussive, irrepressible force echoing through the air. Sigrid looked up and saw the second dragon of her life. It circled above the watch tower and she could have sworn that it was laughing, as the guards and she stood there, sitting ducks.

"Talos save us! It's a dragon!" one of them yelled.

"Don't let it breathe at you!" Sigrid screamed back, as the guards began trying to figure arrows at the thing. It laughed again: that deep, rumbling noise, redolent of shifting earth, volcanic upswellings. "If you hear _anything_ like 'yol'—_run!_" She cursed the lack of a bow, though to be honest, she was a poor shot. But as she ran, following the dragon's path of flight, the fury of being utterly ineffectual _again_ consumed her. The last time she had met a dragon her hands had been tied and she'd been wearing little more than smallclothes. This time, fully armored, she could only circle the ground as the dragon flew above her, waiting for it to land and hoping that she didn't die, burnt to a crisp, like one of the corpses she could see huddled against the side of the tower.

"I am Mirmulnir!" it rumbled. "Thurri du hin sille ko Sovngarde!"

"Oh yeah?" she screamed at it, waving her sword. "Why don't you—come down here and say that?" _Oh Sigrid_, she thought, _you've got to work on your battle banter, especially when facing otherworldly monsters_.

Finally, _finally_, the dragon swooped to the earth and was rushed by the guards as well as Sigrid. With an almost casual snap of its teeth, it snatched one of them from the pack, gripping him between its massive jaws and shaking his body like a dog with a rat. He screamed, a visceral, choked noise, and fell silent. With two snaps, the dragon swallowed him whole. "You are brave! Balaan hokoron," it growled, blood spattered over its muzzle. "Your defeat brings me _honor_." Sigrid rushed straight for the dragon and for a moment, its crazed yellow eyes met hers and it opened its mouth to set her on fire.

"OH NO YOU FUCKING DON'T," Sigrid said, and smashed it in the nose with her shield. _She remembered, as a girl, her father telling her: my girl, if you are ever confronted with a bear, with a predator larger than you are, remember that they are animals, too, they can be surprised, and stunned. Hit it in the face. _Somehow she could not imagine her dear, limping father ever having fought a bear, or a dragon. It seemed to work, though, and while it seemed momentarily stunned, Sigrid hacked furiously at its face with her sword. Once. Twice. Ten times. When it started to open its mouth she slammed it with her shield again. The dragon's skin, though it seemed tough as stone at first, gave way under the force of her blows, and she was spattered with blood so hot it burned her, leaving sizzling patches of flesh on the unprotected bits of her skin, staining her armor. Some of it landed on her lips and she tasted it, acidic and alien. Like the blood of the center of Nirn itself.

Mirmulnir shook it off, as though a fly had battered into his face as he flew, and with a mighty stretch of muscles, his wings pumped, knocking some of the guards to the ground as the dragon pushed himself into the air. "Brit grah! I had forgotten what fine sport you mortals can provide!" That crazed laughter again, and the breath of fire touched her. It burned, oh it burned. Sigrid, though in agony, ran through it, as quickly as she could. Though the pain remained she had managed to get her shield up in time, and had not stayed directly in the flame long enough to be seriously injured. _Like pinching out a candle_, she thought sourly, and then saw that the dragon had landed again, brought down by the arrows.

Sigrid ran for it again, this time lunging forward as it raised itself up in a shriek, the sword catching at its softer underbelly. "DIE!" she yelled. "DIE, you filthy _animal_." She dodged, just in time to avoid being crushed by its weight as it fell again, swiping at a guard with razor-sharp claws. Now, she stabbed it in the side, once, twice, before setting her foot against its body to yank the sword free, praying that it would survive this experience. The dragon was breathing harder now, unable to even bring itself to breathe the flames it had used against them before.

As it turned its great head to look at her again, it met her eyes, as she raised the sword to cut at its head again. There was a flash of recognition in the dying yellow light. "Dovahkiin! NO!"

And then she brought the sword down, slashing its scaled throat, and the boiling blood sprayed out in an arterial fountain, scalding the surrounding guards. The dragon reared up with a groan, and then collapsed in a heavy thump to the ground, the light fading from its eyes.

Sigrid could not at first believe what had just happened. "I killed it," she whispered to herself. "I killed a fucking _dragon_."

The dragon had not just died, though. With the noise of a crackling fire its very body and flesh began to burn up, melting from its bones as though it had never existed. With that crackling and the rushing noise of wind in her ears, Sigrid was once again seized by some alien power, outside of herself. _Something_ was happening to her, and she did not know what. She feebly slashed at the noise, the glowing light, with the blade of her sword, but she was chopping at nothing. The power invaded her, choking her. It soaked under her skin. Sigrid fell to her knees, under a sudden wave of nausea, and vomited. The warmth rose to a burning heat, and then—vanished.

She was herself again.

Not quite. Something was different.

The burning of the—whatever it was—from the dragon had triggered memories, inexorable as the movement of an avalanche. The word welled up from her stomach, from her dreams. She could not have held it back if she'd tried. Though it burned, oh it burned, coming up her throat and mouth, when she opened her mouth, it was with a concussive force. "_FUS!_"

An unwitting guard standing opposite her, gawking at the corpse of the dragon, was knocked to the ground. _Oh_, that is not good, Sigrid thought. _That is not good at all_.

The guard was picking himself up, staring at her in a combination of fear and awe. "I…I can't believe it," he stammered. "You're…Dragonborn…!"

She knew she should have recalled. Perhaps her father had told her the stories, when she was a small child. But most of his teachings concerned Talos and staying alive. Never fairytales. Her voice sounded raw to her ears but at least this, her voice, was _hers_. Normal. Safe. "Dragonborn?"

The guard shook his head. "In the very oldest tales, back from when there were still dragons in Skyrim, the Dragonborn would slay dragons and steal their power—that's what you did, isn't it? Absorbed the dragon's power?"

Oh, she felt sick. She felt very, very sick. She couldn't take her eyes away from the dragon's corpse as she, too, struggled to her feet. "I don't know what happened to me," she said. And it was Talos' honest truth.

The same guard, so stubborn in his belief, seemed to have decided on awe. He sidled a little closer to her, filthy and covered in sticky dragons' blood as she was, "You can Shout now—that can only mean one thing. You must be Dragonborn."

"That's right!" another guard chimed in. "Me grandda used to tell stories about the Dragonborn. Those born with the Dragon Blood in 'em. Like old Tiber Septim hisself."

"I never heard of Tiber Septim killing any dragons," a third guard cut in doubtfully.

"There weren't any dragons then, idiot," said the first guard, the light of hero worship in his eyes. _This was very, very bad_. "But the old tales tell of the Dragonborn, who could kill the dragons and steal their power! You _must_ be one!'

"What do you say, Irileth?" the second guard asked. "You're being awfully quiet."

"Come on, Irileth, tell us, do you believe in this Dragonborn business?" the third guard asked sarcastically, confident that she would agree with him on the matter.

"Hmph. Some of you would be better off keeping quiet than flapping your gums on matters you don't know anything about. Here's a dead dragon, and that's something I definitely understand. Now we know we can kill them. But I don't need some mythical Dragonborn. Someone who can put down a dragon is more than enough for me."

"You wouldn't understand, housecarl. You ain't a Nord!" the first guard protested.

"I've been all across Tamriel. I've seen plenty of things just as outlandish as this. I'd advise you all to trust in the strength of your sword arm over tales and legends," Irileth said quietly, and Sigrid privately agreed with her. Irileth turned to Sigrid and looked at her seriously, her red eyes exhausted and intent. "That was the hairiest fight I've ever been in and I've been more than a few. I don't know about this Dragonborn business, but I'm glad you're with us. You better get back to Whiterun right away. Jarl Balgruuf will want to know what happened here."

"Yes," Sigrid said. The sooner she told the Jarl of what had happened, the sooner she could put this behind her and get back to her normal life. Slaying a few bandits or maybe a nest of Frostbite spiders or even draugr seemed like a blessed relief after what had happened today.

And then, as she trudged across the plains, in too much pain to run, lightning flashed and a crack of thunder rent the air. Four voices in chorus, louder than anything she had heard before, screamed over the sudden howl of the wind, echoing, in an eerie concert:

"_DOVAHKIIN!_" they said.

"Ohhh, _shit_," said Sigrid.


	6. Drinks

**A/N: **First of all, thank you guys so much for reviewing, I'm really glad y'all are enjoying this so far! I was worried no one was reading, lol. In this chapter, people get drunk and I wrote one of my favorite Sigrid paragraphs so far... And I _think_ the next chapter should finally have the two storylines converging, but unfortunately things kind of tend to get away from me sometimes.

* * *

><p><em>Less good than they say for the sons of men<br>is the drinking oft of ale:  
>for the more they drink, the less can they think<br>and keep a watch o'er their wits. _

—The Poetic Edda, _Hávamál_, translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>As Sigrid limped back into the Jarl's court, she ignored the awed eyes on her as best she could. It didn't help that she could practically feel them boring into the back of her skull. Talos knew she'd never wanted to be a hero, because heroes usually ended up <em>dead<em> much earlier than necessary, no matter how many songs were sung about them. It seemed that for now, Fate had other ideas in store for her. She imagined Fate, personified as the dragon Mirmulnir, laughing at her, yellow eyes flashing and bloody teeth bared. It was not a pleasant sight.

As she approached the dais, Proventus Avenicci came running up to her, tripping little steps halting abruptly as they met in the middle of the distance. "Good! You're finally here. The Jarl's been waiting for you."

The Jarl was saying to one of his courtiers, as she approached, "You heard the summons… what else could it mean?" At the sight of Sigrid, however, he broke off the conversation and looked at her, _really_ looked at her, though she could not make out what he thought _of_ her. It was disconcerting, to be pinned beneath that intent blue gaze. Though not as flashy or boasting as some Nords she had met in the past, she had the sense that Jarl Balgruuf could be a dangerous man in his own quiet way. He _saw _things, and worst of all, he cared intensely about his people. "What happened at the watchtower?" he asked, "Was the dragon there?"

Sigrid forced herself to stand at military attention, the posture that one of her mercenary leaders had preferred when she reported in. Legs splayed slightly, arms folded behind her back. Just standing that way made the words come easier, eyes lidded slightly as she summarized the details, leaving out the most important parts. "Jarl Balgruuf, the watchtower was destroyed when Irileth and the men arrived—the dragon had burned it to the ground. Several men had been killed. The dragon returned, but with every soldier working together, we killed it."

"I knew I could count on Irileth," Balgruuf said, "But there must be more to it than that?" He looked at her sternly, as though he could see right through her and knew that she had omitted the important information.

Sigrid steeled herself, though it went against every fiber of her being to admit to such a thing. "When the dragon died… I absorbed some kind of power…"

Jarl Balgruuf glanced sideways at Avenicci, an unreadable bland gaze, and sat back in his throne again. He suddenly looked extremely tired, several years older. "As I suspected. So it's true—the Greybeards really were summoning you."

Oh no, oh no… Sigrid swallowed. This just got worse and worse. Like any Nord, she knew of the Greybeards, living in seclusion on the snowy slopes of the Throat of the World, existing in the stone halls of High Hrothgar in total silence lest the power of their voices harm another living thing. "What do they want with me?" she asked, though with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she felt that she knew already what the answer would be.

"The Dragonborn is said to be uniquely gifted in the Voice—the ability to focus your vital essence into a _thu'um_," the Jarl said, steepling his fingers in a pyramid and peering at her over them. "If you really are Dragonborn, they can teach you how to use your gift. The Greybeards…"

His bodyguard, a burly Nord named Hrongar, interrupted him, and walked straight up to Sigrid, far too close in to her personal space, expression quizzical. "Didn't you hear the thundering sound as you returned to Whiterun?" he demanded.

"I did," she admitted. "But I don't see how this has anything to do with _me_…"

"_You_ were the one that absorbed the dragon's soul. And that was the voice of the Greybeards! Summoning you to High Hrothgar! This hasn't happened in… centuries, at least. Not since Tiber Septim himself was summoned, when he was still Talos of Atmora!" There was a gleam in his eye, predatory or fanatical, she couldn't tell. It set her teeth on edge, the way some of these people looked at her, as though they would snap her to pieces if they could. Hungry for _something _that she could provide. And she knew it wasn't in the normal way of things—not with the way she looked. She shifted her weight again, hands slipping to the sword hilt, out of her "ease."

"Hrongar, calm yourself!" Avenicci interrupted, oblivious as ever to the tension in the room. "What does any of this Nord nonsense have to do with our… friend, here? Capable as she _may_ be, I don't see any signs of her being this, what—'Dragonborn.'"

"Nord nonsense!" Hrongar growled, taking a threatening step forward, his icy eyes narrowed, "Why you puffed up, ignorant…_Imperial_! These are our sacred traditions that go back to the founding of the First Empire!"

"Hrongar," the Jarl interrupted, with steely control, born of years of mediating between his bickering courtiers, "Don't be so hard on Avenicci."

"I meant no disrespect, of course. It's just that… what do these Greybeards want with her?" Avenicci sounded peevish, as though he could not imagine what _anyone_ would want with a woman like Sigrid.

"That's the Greybeards' business, not ours," the Jarl said finally, before he turned that intent look back upon Sigrid. "Whatever happened when you killed that dragon, it revealed something in you, and the Greybeards heard it. If they think you're Dragonborn, who are we to argue?"

"I don't—" she started to protest.

"You'd better get up to High Hrothgar immediately. There's no refusing the summons of the Greybeards. It's a tremendous honor." His eyes grew misty with memory. "I envy you, you know. To climb the Seven Thousand Steps again… I made the pilgrimage once—did you know that?"

"No, my lord," Sigrid said politely.

The Jarl's eyes grew dreamy, as he recalled that pleasant memory. "High Hrothgar is a very peaceful place. Very… disconnected from the troubles of this world. I wonder that the Greybeards even notice what's going on down here. They haven't seemed to care before," he murmured, the last just a little bitter. She could see the weight of responsibility weighting him down, and did not envy him. "No matter. Go to High Hrothgar. Learn what the Greybeards can teach you."

"Yes, my lord," she said, and privately thought _like hell I will_. And then: maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it was all a mistake. And who better to tell her so than the Greybeards? Maybe she could get all of this straightened out within the next few weeks and then focus on taking enough mercenary jobs to purchase that home in Whiterun. Put down roots for the first time in over a decade.

" You've done a great service for me and my city, Dragonborn," Balgruuf said. Irrationally, her chest swelled just a bit with pride, which she tamped down, viciously. "By my right as Jarl, I name you Thane of Whiterun. It's the greatest honor that's within my power to grant. I assign you Lydia as a personal housecarl, and the Axe of Whiterun to serve as this badge of office. We are honored to have you as Thane of our city, Dragonborn." He turned from her; she was already forgotten. "Back to business, Proventus. We still have a city to defend."

"Yes, my lord."

Sigrid accepted the axe, which was a gorgeous weapon, if you were fond of axes. She preferred swords, but she knew that to turn down such a gift was a grave insult. Well, whenever she had her house, the Axe of Whiterun would take pride of place above the firepit. Those sorts of weapons were usually intended for ceremony, anyway, though as she tested the edge with her thumb and blood welled up from the cut, she realized that this axe was more than functional, too. She tried to rush through the door before anyone else could stop her, but she was too late.

A woman, shorter than she, with a pouty-mouthed face and dark eyes, stood in her way, barring the exit. The brown eyes raked over Sigrid without expression, though judging from the immaculate keep of the woman's armor and the fresh-scrubbed healthiness of her face, Sigrid imagined that she had been found wanting. Nevertheless, the woman briefly thumped the left side of her chest with her right fist, a gesture of honor and respect. Over the heart. "My Thane. My name is Lydia. The Jarl has appointed me to be your housecarl. It's an honor to serve you. I'll guard you, and all you own, with my life."

"Er, thank you," Sigrid said awkwardly, fighting the urge to giggle insanely at the shear surreal quality of the situation. All she owned? That was approximately nothing. Sigrid Frostborn, Thane of Whiterun? Had anyone said that phrase to her a few years back, when she was camped in the mud outside of Skingrad, waiting on tenterhooks for the order to attack, wounds infected from the filth of the trenches, running on only a few hours' hurried sleep and eating raw meat because fires would have given away their position, she _would_ have laughed. Right in your face, she would have laughed, and told you that she was the Thane of Shit, and that was all she'd ever be. It seemed that since coming to Skyrim, however, the world had different things in store for her. She wasn't sure if she liked it. Sigrid knew mud; she knew hunger. She knew the desperation of _that_ world. This? Dragons returning from the dead? Her own personal housecarl? She did not know this world. She had no idea where she stood.

"What do you require of me?" the woman was asking, following at Sigrid's heels as she went to open the door.

"I don't require anything of you," Sigrid said, though her steps down the stairs of Dragonsreach were not quick enough.

Lydia kept pace easily, watching her sideways from the corner of her eye. "But I am your housecarl! I will follow you into battle," she protested.

"No, really," Sigrid said. "That won't be necessary. My first orders to you as thane are to stay here. In Dragonsreach."

"But, my thane!"

"Your thane would prefer that you remain—here."

Lydia started to open her mouth to say something else, to protest, but Sigrid decided that now was the time to take the coward's way out. She fled. Eventually, Lydia stopped following her.

Perhaps it was time to make the journey to Ivarstead, after all.

* * *

><p>When Vilkas and Aela finally made their way back to Whiterun, after taking a detour to Markarth to return the statue to their merchant client and collect their pay, they found a city abuzz with rumors and conjecture. A dragon had attacked the Western Watchtower in their absence, and the gossip said that the Dragonborn had devoured the monster's very soul. <em>Dragonborn?<em> Vilkas snorted to himself. What nonsense! It seemed as though everyone had fairytales on the mind these days. No one could agree on anything about this mysterious, legendary figure, however. Some of them said that it had been a woman as beautiful as the dawn. Others were convinced the Dragonborn was a man—the figure that had slain the dragon was too tall to be a woman. Vilkas, splitting the difference between the rumors, simply assumed that this Dragonborn did not exist, and the townspeople had created her—or him—to make themselves feel better about the fact that a dragon had gotten so close to the quiet, safe haven that Whiterun had always been.

He took the time to go out and look at the skeleton, though. It remained where it had fallen by the watchtower, huge and imposing. The bleached bones looked as though they'd been there for centuries, already beginning to fade into the landscape, picked totally clean of scales and flesh, though he knew it had only been a matter of weeks. The smell of magic, burnt and bloody, practically rolled off of the bones in waves, and he coughed a little, almost gagging on the stench. How none of the workman busy rebuilding the tower could smell it, he didn't know.

Vilkas ran his hand over the ribcage of the beast, fingers gripping the cold bone knocked with sword-chips, getting a feel of its weight and heft. The dragon, in life, would truly be a worthy opponent. Anticipation burned through him, thinking that he might soon have the chance to fight one himself. He thought: _it would be an honor to bring down this beast_, and then _the damned irony of that_… but he didn't want to think too much about Kodlak's request today.

Returning to Jorrvaskr always felt like coming home. It _was_ home, the only one he could remember. There were grey areas in his memory from before the time that Jergen had found the twins surrounded by necromancers, about to become unwitting sacrifices. Faint flashes of a woman's eyes, maybe, or a note from a lullaby, but he could not remember _that_ home. He could remember Jorrvaskr, though, every carved wooden beam of it, a haven for a child who loved to scrap, to play the warrior, to listen wide-eyed to the tales of the Imperial wars fought by Skjor and Jergen and Kodlak. The hall still held that comforting warmth whenever he returned, though by now, some of his memories were of ghosts. Such was the way of the warrior, of growing up in the company of warriors. Men died. You remained. You remembered.

He found the practice grounds empty except for Njada Stone-arm, running laps, who turned her sardonic gaze upon him and drawled out, "Well, well. If it isn't the prodigal wolf, returned from the wilds to grace us with his presence!"

"Good morning to you, too, Njada," he said dryly, not in the mood for her games today—or ever, really. But especially today.

"Going to ask where your brother is?" she said, with a flash of very white teeth and more than a hint of pleasure at needling him, "Hmmm?"

"I'll find him myself, when I'm ready," Vilkas said, and went into the hall without further preamble.

Njada apparently hadn't looked very hard for Farkas, for the man was sitting right there, eating a hearty early dinner, a plate full of extremely rare meat, almost blue, and Tilma's roasted potatoes. He looked up as Vilkas opened the Jorrvaskr doors, and nodded. "Hello, Vilkas," he said amiably, as though his older brother hadn't tried to kill him on the practice field a week ago, and then disappeared into thin air for a good week. As much as he hated to admit it, Farkas was probably used to it by now: that's how it had always been. Farkas, cheerful, irreverent, impossible to phase; Vilkas, moody and rage-prone, on edge at the worst times. _Some things never change, brother_.

"Farkas," he said, and sat down at the table across from him, helping himself to a plate and some slices of meat from the platter. They ate in a silence that was awkward at first, but gradually became companionable. Farkas offered him the plate of potatoes, and he took some of those, too. Good crusty bread with leeks rubbed in butter and grilled. The food made him feel more human: for most of the previous week he had eaten either deer he'd run down in the woods, or bandits, in his wolf form. Not something that made him proud, but necessary. His different bodies, and his different souls, had their own needs and desires. Perhaps that is what worried Kodlak…

"Good trip?" his brother asked.

"Aela and I slaughtered a Forsworn camp," Vilkas said, and shrugged. "Nothing exciting." He attempted to mumble out an apology but couldn't quite manage the words. It came out sounding like, "By the way, I…" and trailed off into a wordless mumble. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

"'S all right," Farkas said, and smiled suddenly. "I know what you meant, anyway. You're just _shit_ at saying it." He leaned back in the chair, still grinning, stomach full of meat, full and satisfied.

"I hate you," Vilkas said.

"Let's go get something to drink," Farkas said. "The Bannered Mare. On me."

Vilkas grinned back at him, and pushed his hair out of his eyes. "Well, if you're paying…"

Though he was not, by rule, a heavy drinker, sometimes a month would get to him in such a way that it made sense. He was no Torvar, by any means—the man could be found drinking in Jorrvaskr, drinking in the Bannered Mare, drinking in the Drunken Huntsman. Vilkas himself usually confined any drunkenness to Jorrvaskr, but something about the stress of the last few weeks made the Bannered Mare seem to be a more appealing option. Listening to the gossip, the boasting of the warriors stopping by Whiterun and passing through, all of it made him feel more human, more connected to the city around him.

The Bannered Mare was a small tavern, considering, more cozy than one might expect for a city the size of Whiterun, as familiar to him as the rest of the city. Hulda, the patroness, had told him many times the story of the namesake horse, belonging to a Nord king who died in battle, and then carried the banner still, leading is warriors to victory. It was a pleasant room, well-lit by the fires that Saadia the maid stoked carefully. The regulars were almost always there: Uthgerd the Unbroken, Sinmir, complaining of the Whiterun secutiry, and Mikael the Bard, either singing or attempting to flirt with whatever bit of skirt happened to traipse into the Mare.

Farkas sat down at the bar and ordered two pints of ale, but Vilkas remained standing for the time being, leaning against a wall and eyeing the exits. It was a bad habit he'd gotten into after one of their jobs had gone wrong a few years ago, forcing them to fight their way out of an incredibly hairy situation. Just making sure no one was blocking the way out. Which was patently ridiculous, here in Whiterun, where the most trouble that they ever got into was trouble they themselves caused.

"Stop brooding," Farkas said, sliding the mug across the bar.

"I'm not brooding."

"Uh huh," Farkas said. "And my name is Ysgramor, pleased to meet you."

Vilkas glared at him but refused to dignify that with a response. He drank the ale wordlessly, and shoved the mug back at Hulda for another fill. They drank in silence for a while, before Vilkas felt his tongue loosen, a little. He was not drunk, it took more than three mugs of ale to do that, especially on a full stomach, but he had relaxed slightly, the companionable silence of his sibling and the warm hum of noise in the room shifting away some of his stress. "So you're really going to do it," he said, looking Farkas in the eye.

"I'm really going to do it," Farkas repeated. "It's not so bad. I haven't for…over a week, since you left."

"It doesn't… pull at you?" Vilkas said, and drained the rest of the ale. Fourth drink, maybe? Fifth? "It doesn't bother you?"

Farkas looked down into his own ale, examining his distorted reflection in the cloudy drink, and then shrugged. "A bit. You get used to it." He lifted the mug and drank, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "It's what Kodlak wants, and what Jergen would've wanted, I bet. And that's good enough for me."

"Right. Don't really want to talk about this anymore, now."

"Well, me neither," Farkas said, and laughed. "But you do enjoy your brooding."

"I'm going to kill you," Vilkas replied.

"Didn't work the last time!"

Vilkas shook his head, but his mouth had turned up just the smallest of fractions in a tiny smile. Trust his brother's ridiculous mockery to cheer him up. As they drank more, Farkas' hand motions became more expansive as well, a tell-tale sign that the alcohol had gone to his head. Another sign were the stories that he began telling: off-color tales of his adventures, both of the martial and amorous varieties. This particular story combined both aspects of Farkas' life in a humorous rambling that involved him first sneaking into a bandit camp ("This is how I _know_ you're lying," Vilkas cut in, "You couldn't sneak up on a mammoth.") and being set upon by the bandit chief's woman. Some pink smallclothes were involved, and Farkas smugly finished it off by saying, "Still got 'em in Jorrvaskr."

"That's disgusting," Aela the Huntress said, as she sat down in between them, though she was smiling. "Glad to see you've decided to behave yourselves. I'm not even going to ask what you were at odds about because I don't want to ruin this wonderful moment."

"Vilkas doesn't think that's an appropriate trophy," Farkas said seriously. "That's what it was about."

Skjor, who'd joined the group along with Aela, sliding his arm around her waist, smirked at them. "Doubtful," he said. "If that's what you're spending all of your time on, Farkas, it's no wonder Vilkas almost kicked your sorry arse around the practice grounds the other day."

"He never," the younger brother said, highly offended. "I wasn't even fighting back!"

The bickering went on through the next round of drinks, and Vilkas, who had lost count of how much he'd actually had to drink, found it expedient to sit down on one of the stools rather than remain on his feet.

There was a warmth in his belly and his chest that had nothing to do with the ale, however, but rather the company, the easy way that they bantered and mocked and stood by each other. How Aela had come after him, how Farkas had forgiven him without so much as a question. How Kodlak would be waiting for them to come back to Jorrvaskr, probably researching throughout the night, but with one ear tuned to the sounds of the younger members of the circle. They were a pack, a family. Whether he gave up his beast-blood or whether he kept it, nothing would change that, he realized hazily. And somehow, that settled things for him.

* * *

><p>At the same time, in another tavern on the opposite side of the mountains, Sigrid was also drunk.<p>

She'd arrived late at night at the Vilemyr Inn after a long day of climbing the roads, combined with a side distraction when she'd stopped to help a traveler who claimed that bandits had stolen his belongings. Sigrid's eyes caught sight of his bow and quiver full of arrows, however, and it was then that she figured something was not quite on the level. Still, she followed him, itching for a fight—or at least, a _normal_ fight. With real, breathing bodies. Without dragons. At a set of imposing towers, she was set upon by bandits. "Thanks," she told one of them, an Orc who had run screaming at her and shouting, "You never should have come here!"

"Huh?" he asked, momentarily confused.

"I really, really wanted to fight something that wasn't a fucking dragon," she said cheerfully, as she swung the sword around with all her might, and cut his head off. It went rolling down the hill, expression still surprised. Though the other bandits attempted to crowd her, she had little trouble dispatching them. At one point in the fight, when two of them, both burly men had cornered her against a wall, she thought for one wild moment that she might use the Voice to throw them backwards. And to her shame, she had been too frightened to try to speak the word again. Instead, she threw herself at the smaller man and tackled him to the ground, cutting his throat almost at the same time as she was rolling away, back up onto her feet to face the last remaining thief.

And now she was sitting in the Vilemyr Inn, drowning her worries in ale. At first, she'd stuck to business, chatting with the innkeeper about rumors he'd heard (apparently, the barrow directly across from the inn was haunted—she wondered if he'd _heard_ of draugr?—but no, that's not what he meant) and about the journey up the Seven Thousand Steps. Apparently the only real visitors were, "like you," pilgrims. She didn't have the heart to tell him her true purpose, and drank more ale to cover her discomfort. And then more ale, because she was frustrated. Wilhelm, older and balding but still solidly built, watched her with a half-worried, half-amused eye. "Am I going to have to pull you off the floor later, lass?" he asked.

"Lies! And damned lies," Sigrid growled, thumping her mug down on the table. "A refill, Wilhelm!"

"I don't know if that's a good idea…" the innkeeper said, frowning at her.

"WHO is paying you?" Sigrid demanded. "I said MORE. ALE."

"All right, all right," Wilhelm said, and pocketed her coin without further protest, "But I'm informing you now if you've got somewhere to be tomorrow, I ain't waking you."

"I don't have _anywhere_ to be tomorrow," Sigrid muttered rebelliously. "Those fucking Greybeards can bloody well _wait_ for me." She took a large gulp of the ale and looked down at it, suddenly feeling morose. "Wilhelm. What d'you do if you're like. Supposed to save the world. But you just want to bash skulls in. What do you _do_."

"Well," Wilhelm said carefully, polishing a newly cleaned mug, "Can't say I ever wanted to bash skulls in, myself."

"You have _no_, no, no, imagin_ation_," Sigrid complained. "I'm serious. This is a… a _major_ problem. _Major_ problem. I think I'm supposed to—save the world. I really just want. I don't know. I just want a house." She slumped against the bar, leaning her head on her hands. "Don't know if I got a choice, Wilhelm. Bloody _Dovahkiin _this and _Dovahkiin_ that. Y'know if I wanted to I could knock you over with my _voice_."

"Hmm," he agreed. "I'm sure you could. Perhaps you should call it quits for the evening, yes?"

"FINE," Sigrid said, glaring at him. "But only 'cos I'm tired. Not 'cos you think I'm drunk." And she stumbled, gratefully, towards her room.

* * *

><p>On each side of the mountain, they slept.<p> 


	7. Companions

_[S]he hath need of fire, who now is come,  
>numbed with cold to the knee;<br>food and clothing the wanderer craves  
>who has fared o'er the rimy fell.<em>

—The Poetic Edda, _Hávamál_, translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>She woke up with a raging hangover and the knowledge that she was going to have to work it off by climbing the 7,000 Steps. Perhaps, at some point in her life, she had done something more painful than this—i.e. climbing the tallest mountain in the country with a hangover and operating on only a few hours of sleep—but this morning, she had trouble recalling what those things could have been. Squinting, she emerged from the room and into the morning light, grinning at Wilhelm as he looked her up and down.<p>

"Glad to see you didn't die in the night, my friend," he remarked.

"It'd take more than ale to do _me_ in," Sigrid said confidently. The cold just might do it, she thought. She'd prepared for the trip with furs she'd traded for, cushioning and warming her under her armor. It would be necessary for the Steps, but her money had run out again, and there went all of her dreams of saving for that house. This was uncomfortably close to her days after the mercenary company had been destroyed, living day-to-day, with little long-term plans.

"So I see," Wilhelm said, taking the last of her available coin and nudging a plate full of hot breakfast in her direction. "Take care it's not the Steps. The wolves are out in force this time o' year."

Sigrid ate her oatmeal and hot breakfast rolls and sliced apples with brown sugar without complaint, thinking about the journey ahead. She was probably not the usual run of pilgrim, in fact, she almost relished the wolves: at least that way, she'd have a little more coin once returning from the top of the mountain. If she returned from the top of the mountain. Maybe the Greybeards would decide to Shout her to death, like Ulfric supposedly did to Torygg, and at least that would nip all of this legendary hero bullshit right in the bud. Mercenaries didn't become legendary heroes. Not often, anyway. It wasn't her style. Instead, she had seconds. And thirds. Who knew when she'd get a hot meal next? With a sigh, she pushed the plate, which she'd scraped clean, back at Wilhelm.

He looked at it approvingly. "Like a woman who appreciates her food," he said. "If you make it back, stop by again some time."

"Stop funning," Sigrid said, shaking her head, "It's unbecoming of a publican." And with that, she stood and squared her shoulders, and went out into the world again.

* * *

><p>In the morning, Vilkas woke with a raging headache that abated slightly when he limped down to the Jorrvaskr hall. Farkas had apparently slept in, and Aela and Sjkor were nowhere to be found, which was also not unusual. He relished the silence, and took the opportunity to make his selection of the best of the breakfast food that Tilma had left out for them: cold boiled eggs, and buckwheat griddle-cakes, and crispy pieces of bacon. He felt a little better after that, and a few cups of hot coffee to take the edge off. Headache eased just enough to make it bearable, he went outside to watch the sunrise. And just like that, with the slow heat of morning warming his skin, it suddenly snapped into place. Farkas was right. It really <em>was<em> that simple. Or it should be that simple.

The realization that he would never again run through the wilds as a wolf, whether or not Kodlak ever found his cure, hit him like the blow from a warhammer. A deep breath, to steady and center himself. Instead of thinking about what he would lose, Vilkas thought of other things in the future: the excitement of dragons returning to Skyrim. Hunting the Silver Hand, even though it was more satisfying to rip them apart as a wolf, ravaging their corpses with his teeth and…no. Vilkas sighed. Perhaps this was going to be more difficult than he had first assumed.

* * *

><p>Burdened by the addition of some supplies a local Nord could not bring to the Greybeards herself, Sigrid set off on the pilgrimage to High Hrothgar. At first, climbing the steps was relaxing, allowing her to concentrate simply on the meditative calm of putting one foot in front of the other. At first she stopped to read the inscriptions on the little shrines dotted at the sides of the road, though her mood gradually soured as she read: <em>Before the birth of men, the Dragons ruled all Mundus. Their word was the Voice, and they spoke only for True Needs. For the Voice could blot out the sky and flood the land. <em>She did not want to be reminded of the force lurking beneath her tongue, waiting to be unleashed. As she climbed the heights the air grew thinner, chillier. The pack of supplies she'd picked up added a weight to her shoulders, not unbearable yet. The Ivarstead villagers hadn't been lying about the wolves, which emerged periodically from the snow, snarling and looking for an easy meal. She could see the thin ribs of their bodies, and as she gradually climbed the steps, she realized that there was probably not much for them to eat, making them even bolder. At this rate it was almost reflexive, to pull out her sword, stab them as they leapt at her, and then quickly skin them and pack away the pelts.

There were a few pilgrims meditating on the shrines, but Sigrid avoided them. She did not feel like speaking, like answering awkward questions. The higher she climbed, the more focus she had on the steps above her, vision narrowing and focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. The chill in the air turned her cheeks a brilliant pink beneath her helmet, and she tugged part of the furs beneath her armor up, to cover the lower half of her face and mouth, breath caught hot and moist beneath it.

Just as she'd grown weary, she came up the stairs to find a crack between two high walls of rock, and heard the tell-tale growling that spelled trouble: it spelled _troll_. Of course, just as she grew tired and had contemplated having a bit of a sit down in the lea of a stone, out of the way of the biting wind. Trolls were vicious creatures, and they could be difficult to kill: some magic allowed them to slowly regenerate their health and heal their wounds, even as you fought them. You had to be quick, had to be vicious. She wasn't feeling either one right now, but began sliding carefully along the snow, wincing at the crunch under her feet. The troll smelled her, of course. The fight was quick and painful: she did her best to get in close so it couldn't swipe at her with her claws, but was not entirely unsuccessful. Her blood and the troll's mingled on the smashed-up snow, and eventually, it fell in a heap to the ground, with a groan, and she took a minute to sit there, panting and regaining her composure.

The remaining few hundred steps felt like repeating the previous 6,000 steps all over again, and as she trudged through the snow to the little offering box to deposit Klimmek's supplies within, Sigrid hoped she didn't collapse on the Greybeards' front step. Standing outside of the huge iron doors of the imposing stone building, Sigrid took a deep breath and pushed them open.

She found herself in a large hall, that looked as though it had been carved directly from the mountain itself. It was cold and silent, despite fire burning merrily in their sconces, and seemed completely deserted. Inhospitable. For a moment, she contemplated turning around and heading back down the steps again, all 7,000 of them. It was then that, from the shadows, a man emerged, flanked by his fellows. They wore hoods atop graying heads. All of them looked old, grizzled, whittled down by the cold mountain winds and the chilled stone of their refuge. Long beards framed lined mouths. The man in the front approached carefully, with a slow steadiness to his movements that seemed so deliberate as to be almost comical.

"So…" he said, in a quiet voice that was barely more than a whisper, a little cracked, as though he was unused to using it. "A Dragonborn appears, at this moment in the turning of the age."

"I'm answering your summons," Sigrid said, "But I'm not Dragonborn." She didn't say 'I can't be,' but that lingered in the sentence. "I don't even know what it really _means_ to be—this way."

The old man merely watched her, silent and unmoving. "It is not for man to protest the twists and turns of the Divine's plan," he said, after she broke the staring contest by looking at the carved stone floor. "We heard your Voice, and summoned you. You have answered. Whether or not you are Dragonborn remains to be seen." He tilted his head slightly. "A man, or a woman, born with the blood and soul of a dragon, and the ability to absorb their souls. To harness their Tongue."

"Surely it's a mistake?" Sigrid asked, more hopeful than anything else, "Surely a common mercenary like me isn't—I can barely even muddle through my life. I can't—go around killing dragons or—or saving the world. I don't _have_ a dragon soul."

The hooded man shook his head. "We will see, if you truly have the fit. Show us, Dragonborn. Let us taste of your voice."

For an insane moment she thought about pretending that she could _not_ do it. But then she would never really have answers. Instead, Sigrid steeled herself, turned away from the old man, and let the power well up in her throat. "FUS!" she said, and it burnt, still, but in a more familiar way. Like extremely hot tea down the back of her throat after a cold day. All four men were watching her, eyes bright in the shadows. She thought she could have seen tears in the eyes of the oldest, but quickly told herself that it was just her imagination—she was tired, overwrought.

"Dragonborn," the old man breathed, his hand on his chest. "It _is_ you. Welcome to High Hrothgar. I am Master Arngeir. I speak for the Greybeards. Now tell me, Dragonborn, why have you come here?"

"I…" Sigrid said, and then sighed. "I was hoping you'd tell me it wasn't true."

Arngeir shook his head. "It is true. And we are honored to welcome a Dragonborn to High Hrothgar—we will do our best to teach you how to use your gift, in fulfillment of your destiny."

"But that's the problem," Sigrid cried, "What _is_ my destiny? I don't _want_ a destiny. I just want to be left to my own devices, and fight until I'm too old to fight, and die on the field of battle with honor. That's all. I don't have any grand plans!" If she had a dragon's soul, would she even be allowed to take her place in Sovngarde?

"Your destiny is, as always, for _you_ to discover," Master Arngeir said, his gravelly voice strangely soothing. "We can show you the Way, but not your destination—that is for you to discover. Will you learn from us?"

Sigrid took a deep breath, and made her decision—she might not like it, but what if this kept happening? What if one day she couldn't control it? "I'm ready to learn."

"Good," said Master Arngeir, leading her towards the center of the room, out of the shadows that softened the halls. "You have shown that you are Dragonborn—you have the inborn gift. Do you have the discipline and temperament to follow the path laid out for you? That remains to be seen."

"Probably not," Sigrid said, already regretting her decision, "Discipline has never really been my strong point…"

Arngeir ignored her as if she had not spoken. "Without training, you have already taken the first steps towards projecting your voice…now let us see if you are willing and able to learn." He smiled at her, an eerie expression that seemed out of place on his time-weathered face. "Each shout has three Words, and as you master each Word, it will become stronger, more focused. Master Einarth will now teach you '_ro_,' the second Word of Unrelenting Force. It means 'balance'…" he trailed off, as Einarth spoke the echoing word _ro_ at the stone tiles in front of him, leaving a red glowing rune where he leaned.

Feeling both nervous and nauseous, Sigrid approached the word and crouched next to it, reaching out with one fingertip to touch it. She'd forgotten about the troll-made injury on her arm. As with _Fus_, the word drew her in, as though it filled her vision and she was unable to see anything else. She gasped as it grabbed hold of her, sank into her, and rocked back on her heels, momentarily stunned. It was not quite as bad as the last time. Not quite. But she could still feel the word swimming around uncertainly in her head, waiting to be released.

"You learn a new word like a master," Master Arngeir breathed. "You truly do have the gift. But learning a word is only the first step—you must unlock its meaning through constant practice. Well—the rest of us must. But you—you can absorb a dragon's life force and knowledge directly. Master Einarth will now allow you to tap into his understanding of '_ro_.'"

Einarth held out his gnarled hands, and she took them in her own. They warmed her skin, like the touch of the letter on the floor. The touch was not so unpleasant as the dragon soul's grasping fingers, and for that, she was relieved. "Now," Master Arngeir was saying, "Let us see how quickly you master your new _thu'um_."

The next few hours were a strange combination of exhilaration and terror. At Master Einarth's voice, phantoms appeared around her, dispelled only as she allowed the words to bubble out of her throat. It came so easily, the more she said them, that it terrified her just the slightest bit. Somehow she ended up in the courtyard, following after Master Arngeir like a tame dog, and with the newest word echoing in her ears. It felt unreal, to move so fast, as though the world, and time itself, would rearrange itself for her. It thrilled her. And that frightened her most of all.

"Your quick mastery of a new _thu'um_ is astonishing," Master Arngeir said, looking solemnly at her, "I'd heard the stories of the abilities of the Dragonborn, but to see it for myself—and now that the—" He stopped abruptly, and looked out over the mountain's drop, the vast sky at cloud level.

"I still don't know how I do it," she said, rubbing her close-cropped head and following the path of his eyes. She could see Skyrim spread out below her, hidden by the clouds, dotted with trees and tiny houses that seemed, from this distance, like child's toys. Strange, to have been gone so long but to feel such an intense connection to a land she'd barely ever seen before.

"You have the aptitude. But beware that your skill does not outstrip your wisdom, Sigrid. You are now ready for your last trial," Arngeir murmured, "Retrieve the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller, our founder, from his tomb in the ancient fane of Ustengrav. Remain true to the way of the Voice, and you will return."

She had come to High Hrothgar hoping for answers and an end to this _Dovahkiin_ business, but left only with more questions, and the feeling that, perhaps, the Greybeards might have been right about her.

What that meant for her future, she did not know.

Did not want to know.

* * *

><p>He knew that it was time to speak to Kodlak when he'd gone a week without changing, though it had been a constant struggle, at night especially. He'd been avoiding speaking to the old man about it for that reason: simple insecurity that it could actually be <em>done<em>. He could feel the gentle tug of the moon upon his body; more and more insistent the longer he stayed outside, more insistent as the rounded edge of it waxed in the sky. And though he had had prime opportunities to change, notably in battle, he had resisted thus far. It itched at his skin, a shiver he was unable to scratch away, keeping him awake at night with the restless thought in his head that it would be good to change, to run _tonight_…

Below the stairs, Kodlak puttered around in his rooms, books of all sorts opened on his table, the map which had used to hold positions of Silver Hand forts empty of markers except for a few red stones, scattered seemingly at random—one of them appeared stuck far west of Falkreath, not far from the path that Vilkas and Aela had taken. It seemed as though whatever the Harbinger tracked was not battle-related any longer. He hadn't lifted his sword in months, and seemed frailer and more exhausted every day. Despite this, he smiled when he saw that Vilkas had returned, feeling like the sheepish child he no longer was.

"Vilkas," Kodlak said warmly. "Welcome home. I've heard of your…travels."

"Yes," Vilkas said. "I told you it wouldn't be easy for me."

"No," Kodlak agreed, "It's not easy for any of us."

"I came to tell you that I've made my decision. It's been a week, Harbinger. But I still hear the call of the blood," Vilkas said, looking down at his hands. Farkas accepted

"We all do," Kodlak murmured. "It's our burden to bear. But we can overcome." The sincere surety in his voice was almost enough to crack Vilkas' heart—the old man was so certain that everything would go according to his wishes, when Vilkas could not possibly see how they would be able to haul themselves from the morass into which their predecessor had mired them.

"You have my brother and I, obviously. But I don't know if the rest will go along quite so easily," Vilkas said, thinking of Aela, her love of the hunt, her fierce wolf's heart; of Skjor, grim and dry-humored, as comfortable in a wolf's skin as out of it.

"Leave that to me," Kodlak replied, and at the sound of footsteps, looked up. "A stranger comes to our hall," he said warningly to Vilkas, to silence him from letting slip their secret.

Vilkas looked up, too, and his eyebrows went up in surprise. Standing there in the corridor, watching them warily, was the ugly woman who'd brought the news of the Helgen dragon attack to the Jarl. She sported a fresh black eye, a scabbed-over gash on her arm, and her clothes were as filthy as ever, but she held herself with a nonchalant pride, daring him to say something to her about it—about any of it. He positively _itched_ to oblige, to put her in her place and knock some of that careless arrogance from her eyes. He saw, however, that Kodlak watched her expectantly, head inclined slightly—an odd look in his eye, as though he recognized her from somewhere else, some other time. Which was, of course, impossible, for Kodlak remained in Jorrvaskr, these days, and did not know any of the visitors.

"I would join the Companions," the woman said, in that oddly pleasant and husky voice, so out of place with the rest of her. She stood a little straighter, the challenge tense in her shoulders.

"Would you, now?" Kodlak asked, and gestured for her to move forward so he could see her better in the flickering light of the candle. "Here, let me have a look at you… Hmm, yes… Perhaps… A certain strength of spirit…"

As Kodlak looked, so did Vilkas. The more he looked, the more confused he became by Kodlak's evident admiration. Yes, she seemed as though she could milk a cow or birth a horse, plow a field, or even drive a bandit away from the family farm, but… She obviously wasn't _so_ quick on her feet if she had let that cat or wolf or other large creature take a swipe at her face, scarring it that badly, and she had none of the quicksilver grace that Aela possessed. He wondered if she'd be even any use with that sword at all; she seemed as though if armed with anything, it would be a warhammer, inelegant and crushing. Any common Whiterun thug could do the same.

"Master, you're not truly considering accepting her?" he asked, horrified. The Companions were already diminished, but would they drag their ancient name further through the mud?

"I am nobody's master, Vilkas," Kodlak said mildly. "And last I checked, we had some empty beds in Jorrvaskr for those with a fire burning in their hearts."

"Apologies," said Vilkas, though he was not sorry in the least. Madness; this was madness. "But perhaps this—isn't the time?" Kodlak did not seem to get the hint, however, so he continued to protest. "And I've never even heard of this outsider." He didn't want to deal with another Torvar, another dead-weight they'd have to bring up to snuff. The woman was still standing there, her gaze fixed upon him, eyes narrowed and broad, full-lipped mouth turned down in a frown. She looked as though she'd like to grab him by the neck and shake him. She _smelled_ furious. Strangely, Vilkas found that this bothered him the least, out of everything else about her that set him on edge and offended all of his instincts.

"Sometimes the famous come to us," Kodlak said quietly. "Sometimes men and women come to us to seek their fame. It makes no difference. What matters is their heart."

"And their arm," Vilkas growled under his breath. The woman watched him still, almost unblinking. He matched the stare—if she wanted to play that game, he would stare her down.

"Of course," Kodlak said. "How are you in battle, girl?"

"I can handle myself," she said shortly, glaring daggers at Vilkas for even allowing this to be called into question.

"That may be so. This is Vilkas. He will test your arm." Kodlak's smile was suspiciously benevolent, and Vilkas looked sharply at him, though he was unable to discern what the old man was up to. For a warrior, he could be surprisingly—subtle—at times. "Vilkas, take her outside to the yard and see what she can do."

"Aye," Vilkas said, though what he really meant was, _fuck, no. _Instead, he stood from the chair and realized that the woman was exactly his height, so that when she looked him straight in the eye, it was _really_ straight in the eye. Somehow, this did nothing to improve his mood. "Follow me," he growled at her. "And no chattering." She followed him at a slight distance, as though loath to get too close. Strangely, this prompted him to snap, "Hurry up. No dawdling."

Rolling her eyes, the woman sped up her steps, widening her stride until she kept pace next to him, her swagger broad like a man's. She itched to say something, he could tell, but she didn't dare because he had something she wanted: entrance to the Guild. He couldn't help smirking, just a little bit—it was not a kind impulse, but he did enjoy having that power. "What's your name?"

Strangely, the scarred mouth turned up in a small smile, almost as though she was happy he didn't know it. "It's Sigrid," she said, and did not supply a family name.

"From where do you hail, Sigrid?" he asked, as they went up the stairs. Athis and Njada were in the process of finishing up one of their latest brawls, toasting each other with increasingly insulting toasts and sloshing mugs of mead, but they and everyone else in the room looked up when he entered with his charge in tow. Eyebrows went up, too, and someone (Ria, he suspected) whistled. No one dared yell anything out, though, because he would have snarled and nipped _that_ nonsense in the bud.

"Winterhold," the woman muttered, studiously avoiding looking at any of the other Companions. "But I haven't lived anywhere, really, since my fourteenth year."

He was surprised: since half of the city had slipped into the Sea of Ghosts, the only people living in Winterhold were generally found in the College of Mages. And she didn't strike him as a mage. "The Companions aren't your typical roving mercenary band," he warned her, "So if that's the kind of life you want, you'd be better off leaving now."

"It's not what I want," she said simply. "It might have been, once. But not anymore."

He thought it better not to answer that. Out on the practice yard, he allowed her to have her pick of any of the spare Companions' weapons, many of them Skyforge steel, made by Eorlund Grey-mane himself, or her own—he still had a very low opinion of that sad-looking steel sword. To his surprise, she refused the offer. "It's what I'm used to, right now. I fight better this way."

"Right," Vilkas said, as he drew his own sword and shield. "The old man said to have a look at you, so let's do this. Just have a few swings at me so I can see your form. We'll take it from there…"

She unsheathed her own weapon, and circled him warily, as though unsure whether or not he was going to attack her. He didn't; stayed on the defensive to see how she would react. She lunged in, with a surprisingly fast movement—not with the practiced, almost balletic steps that Aela would have used, but with a rough grace nevertheless. She feinted first at his side, but he wasn't fooled, having seen the tell-tale motion of her eyes, already moving on to her true target, her wrist twisting as she slashed lightning-quick at his shoulder. He caught the blow on his shield, the force of it ringing through the metal. She grinned, more baring her teeth than anything else. "You're not bad," she taunted him.

"You're too obvious in your tells," he said, as they circled each other again.

"Oh please, don't make me laugh," she said, lunging in again in a sudden flurry of blows, raining down hard and fast on his shield. "I'm just getting started. You, my boy, are no _dragon_."

By way of answer, he broke his promise to Kodlak to only test the weight of her arm, and made a quick, vicious chop at her shield, just to see how she blocked. She met him head-on, looking him straight in the eye, and drawled, "That _all_ you got?" And now the battle was joined in earnest, as earnestly as he'd fought his brother weeks before. He could tell that although she didn't look like much, the woman was a scrapper and had _some_ talent. She was fast, took hits well, and had a sly eye for any moment of weakness. Not graceful, but frighteningly competent and utilitarian. There was no beauty to her movement, it was all brutally efficient, that lean-muscled body a machine, not a work of art. For a brief moment, he was even enjoying himself, as he always did in a swordfight that went well, challenged him, and could result at any moment in metal biting into his neck, the danger part of the draw. He could see from the gleam in her pale gray eyes that he had found another of that… _nature_.

What happened next surprised even him: as she lunged forward, feinting with the sword again, she hooked her shield under his and _tugged_, yanking it completely out of his grasp. As both shields went flying, the woman dropped her sword and threw herself at him, bulling forward and knocking him to the ground with the force of her entire body. After the momentary shock of surprise, his muscle memory took over, and he was fighting back, as she attempted to batter him into submission with her fists. She fought dirty: several times he had to angle his thigh so she didn't knee him. For all her size, she wasn't as heavy as he was and he used that weight to advantage, grabbing one of her arms and using the leverage to flip her over. Neither of them realized they'd drawn a crowd, though most of the Companions who'd been drinking in the mead hall had gathered in the practice grounds, laughing and taunting the combatants.

"My septims are on the new-blood," Torvar said jovially to Ria.

"Are you kidding?" Njada cut in. "She doesn't look like much. Besides, look at Vilkas—he's _furious_."

Some men had rules about never hitting a woman. Vilkas would normally agree with such things, but in a battle, there was no room for chivalry, especially with Nord women who gave as good as they got—it was a very good way to get yourself killed. So he had no compunctions whatsoever about not only blocking Sigrid's punches, but throwing them. She was laughing now, as they wrestled, a breathless and slightly crazed laugh. _Insane_, Vilkas thought, _she's insane_. But even as she punched him in the stomach, he couldn't help laughing too—just a bit—because the situation was so ridiculous, because she took such a crazed joy in the battle. Because he did, too. This had never happened, not in all of the years he could remember of companion initiations.

Eventually, he had her pinned, his legs holding her down, hands gripping her wrists so she couldn't hit him. There was a sudden surrender when her muscles relaxed and she stopped fighting him. "You know," she said, looking up into his eyes, completely unfazed, "If this were a real fight I'd spit in your face and kick you in the bollocks right now."

"If this were a real fight," Vilkas told her, "I'd have ripped your throat out the minute you jumped on me."

"Hmmm," Sigrid replied. "So are you going to let me up?"

Belatedly, he realized he was still lying on top of her, fingers gripping her wrists so tightly that he imagined there would probably be bruises as a result. "Right. Get yourself to your feet, then," he said, and rolled off of her, standing and studiously ignoring the guffaws and amused looks shot his way by the assembled Companions.

"Ow," Sigrid said, as she stood, wincing as she cracked her bruised limbs, experimentally.

"You brought it on yourself, woman. But you _might_ just make it," Vilkas said grudgingly, though he had his doubts about her temper—about her recklessness—a combination of things that could get you killed. That had almost gotten _him_ killed. But Kodlak had already made up his mind, and she could fight. That didn't mean he had to treat her well. "But for now, you're still a whelp to us, new-blood. So you do what we tell you. Here's my sword. Go take it up to Eorlund to have it sharpened. And be careful, it's probably worth more than you are," he added, and had the satisfaction of seeing her flush in rage as she took the sword from him, swallowing her pride.

"Yes, _sir_," she ground out.

"Good," Vilkas said sweetly, "That's the kind of attitude I like to hear from new recruits."

He could feel the heat of her glare boring into his back as he turned around and strolled back into Jorrvaskr to the hoots and whistles of his comrades.

Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to have new blood around, after all.


	8. Errands

__**A/N**: Thanks to everyone who reviewed! Sorry, I've been in a bit of a story-slump recently, but hopefully I'll be able to keep writing on a more regular basis from now on.

* * *

><p><em>Let the wary stranger who seeks refreshment<br>keep silent with sharpened hearing;  
>with his ears let him listen, and look with his eyes;<br>thus each wise man spies out the way._

—The Poetic Edda, from _H__ávamál_, translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>The Skyforge turned out to set upon a rocky outcropping that jutted out above the training grounds of Jorrvaskr. The steps were cut directly from the rock, worn down by centuries of Companions' footsteps going up them to the smith. As she went up the stairs of the Skyforge, she grumbled furiously to herself, "Worth more than my <em>ass<em>." Who on Tamriel did that arrogant skeever-shit think that he was? She had to admit, however, that his sword was a fantastic piece of work: well-balanced and carved beautifully around the hilt and pommel. Just like a man who didn't deserve it to own such a lovely weapon.

At the top of the stairs, she found a huge stone statue of an eagle with its wings just beginning to spread; the sculptor had captured a fierce look in its eye. Sheltered in the lea of its wings was the forge, ancient and battered. An equally ancient and battered blacksmith, arms still ropy with muscles, sat at the grindstone, carefully working a beautiful dagger upon it. He looked up when he heard her footsteps and tilted his head in a greeting. "What brings you here?"

"Vilkas sent me with the sword," Sigrid said, each word dropping from her lips grudgingly, as she extended the sword, blade down.

Eorlund laughed as he took the blade from her, a surprisingly hearty sound for one with such graying hair. _He must have over sixty winters, at least_, she thought to herself, surprised. One saw such old men, occasionally, but usually in the pampered cities, never at a place like Jorrvaskr. Never still making a living by the strength of their arms. "Don't worry too much about it. They were all whelps once, they just might not like to talk about it now that they are warriors of such great renknown," he said dryly. "And don't just always do what you're told without question. Nobody rules anybody in the companions."

"Somebody has to be in charge, though, don't they?" she said with a sinking heart. In her experience mercenary companies went one of two ways: with an autocratic leader, or without. The leaders were not always wise, and they frequently got their companies _killed _through their stupid decisions, but those without leadership were worse. _Much_ worse. No drive. No organization. Always fighting over the proceeds. A chaotic, rambling mess.

Eorlund could see the concern writ large across her features. "Well, I'm not sure how they've managed it—but they have. No leaders since Ysgramor. Kodlak is the Harbinger, and he's a sort of adviser for the whole group, but every man is his own—every woman _her_ own. So don't take Vilkas too much to heart."

"I didn't," she started to say, but stopped. Of course she had. "I'll, ah, need to be going, then."

"Wait," Eorlund said, setting the sword down carefully next to the stone, "I have a favor to ask."

"At least you're _asking_," Sigrid muttered darkly, then looked up at him and raised her voice, "What is it?"

"I've been working a shield for Aela, and I've finished now. But my wife is in mourning, and I need to return to her soon. I'd be much obliged if you could bring this to the Huntress for me."

"Of course," Sigrid said, without a second thought, and extended her hands to accept the piece of armor.

"There's a good lass," Eorlund said, handing her the shield that, like Vilkas' sword, was of a superior quality, of a hefty weight but not too heavy. Even by a quick examination, she could see commonalities in the smoothness of the metal, the precise way that the bits and pieces of the weapons joined together. Eorlund must have smithed both of them himself. "Good luck."

* * *

><p>The living quarters of Jorrvaskr had a kind of plain opulence to them that appealed to her. Nothing was flashy or decorative solely for the sake of being decorative, but every piece of furniture, every fabric had been chosen with care, for utility and length of use, and it all had the worn-in look of things that had existed in the same place for centuries. At least as a temporary home, it would do—whatever their leadership issues, the Companions had obviously done well for themselves over the years. Though some of the furnishings were old, nothing was <em>shabby<em>, and it was all sparkling, spotlessly clean. Sigrid couldn't help grinning a little, as she thought of some of the other places she'd slept in recent years: the outcropping above a tomb, in a trench in a field full of mud, next to the corpse of her shield-mate, in a sewer (drained), and barns and stables and tents too numerous to count. No, Jorrvaskr would do.

The rooms seemed mostly identical regardless of the rank of their inhabitants, difficult to tell apart beyond the accoutrements that filled them: the furnishings and the sizes were much alike. As she peered 'round doors, hoping not to catch anyone in an unpleasant position, she eventually found a room in which a beautiful, auburn haired woman with war-paint slashed across her face and slightly feral yellow eyes was saying to a burly, bald warrior, "Ysgramor _himself_ wouldn't have the patience to deal with all the rabble around here."

Sigrid groaned; were all the Companions to be so cursed _full _of themselves? Stealing herself for a repeat of her experience with Vilkas, she said clearly, so as they would not think she was hiding herself to eavesdrop, "I have your shield."

The woman turned quickly on her heel, a pivot as smooth as a dance. A brief glance up and down revealed that Sigrid was not a threat, apparently, and her face softened in a small smile. "Ah, good. I've been waiting for this." She took the shield eagerly, turning it over in her hands and examining it from all sides: evidently, it pleased her, for she set it down reverently upon a chair, one finger still stroking the studded front. "Are you new here?"

"I told you," said the burly veteran, glancing sideways at her with a sly look in his eye, "This is the whelp that Vilkas mentioned."

At that, Aela the Huntress laughed, loud and long. It was an infectious laugh but a little unnerving all the same: there were claws in it. "Ah, yes," she said finally, wiping one eye. "I heard you gave him quite a thrasing. How I wish I could have seen it!"

"Don't let Vilkas catch you saying that," the man said with a smirk.

At that moment, Sigrid decided that she rather liked both Aela the Huntress and the unnamed man.

Aela was looking at her again, more frankly appraising this time, taking in her size, her scars, her bearing. "Do you think you could handle Vilkas in a real fight?" she asked, that sly smile curving across her lips.

"I don't care much for boasting," Sigrid replied, though, of course, the answer was really _yes_.

"Ah, a woman of action," Aela said. "Admirable. Here… let's have Farkas show you where you'll be resting your head."

"Farkas!" the burly man called.

The man who appeared in the doorway, quizzical expression on his face, was the spitting image of that skeever-shit Vilkas, if he'd been three inches taller, twenty pounds heavier, and had longer hair. And lacked that sharp, occasionally nasty intelligence that lurked behind the eyes. "Did you call me?" he asked, in a deep, rumbling voice.

"Of course we did, ice brain," Aela said, though the words lacked the cruelty that they could have held. Whatever else they were, the Companions certainly had an easy familiarity with each other that Sigrid wasn't sure if she liked or not. "Show this new-blood where the rest of the whelps sleep."

He looked at her, then, and smiled. It lacked any of the appraisal that she had been subjected to thus far, no judgment. His face was completely, totally open. "New blood?" he asked. "Oh, hello. I'm Farkas. Come; follow me."

"Thank you," she said. "You're, er… Vilkas' brother?"

"Twins. Yes," he replied, "How did you know?"

"Lucky guess," she said.

Farkas nodded, as though this were the most logical explanation in the entire world, as he gestured for her to follow him down the hall. Jorrvaskr was laid out in one long hall, with rooms branching off in either direction. Some of the doors were open, some closed, but she could see that some of the rooms seemed empty, while others were decorated with the personal possessions of the inhabitants, mostly weapons, armor, and stashes of food. "Skjor and Aela like to tease me," Farkas was saying, as they rounded the corner, "But they are good people—they challenge us to be our best."

"Doesn't do to get complacent," Sigrid said, agreeing.

"Huh?" said Farkas, and then changed the subject. "Well, it's nice to have a new face around. It gets boring here sometimes. I hope we keep you—this can be a rough life."

Sigrid smiled thinly, thinking of the opulent living quarters and the pleasant Whiterun community, the chill of the mud in the autumn and the feeling of raw horsemeat, gnawed beneath chattering teeth. "I think I'll survive."

"Good," he said, simply. "The quarters are here, just pick a bed and fall into it when you're tired. Tilma'll keep the place clean, she always does. All right. Here you are. Looks like the others're eager to meet you."

"…Fantastic," Sigrid said, glancing narrow-eyed at the dark-haired girl and stone-faced woman. Only one of them looked eager, the other merely looked disdainful; this did not seem to bother Farkas in the least.

"Come to me or Aela if you're looking for work. Once you've made a bit of a name for yourself, Sjkor and Vilkas might have things for you to do. Good luck, and welcome to the Companions."

"Thank you," Sigrid said.

Farkas paused in the doorway, turning around to look at her questioningly. "Actually, Vilkas told me about a job that he thinks might be right up your alley. We've gotten a letter about someone needing some muscle in Riften. I don't know what the fight's about and it's not our business, anyway. I just need you to go out there, look tough, and scare this milk drinker into submission. No more than that. Don't want to hear about a killing, understand?"

"I can handle that," Sigrid said, as though she were not insulted by the simplicity of the assignment. She imagined Vilkas's mocking smile, and contrasted it with Farkas' open, honest features, and scowled.

"Good," Farkas smiled. "Try not to get carried away."

* * *

><p>After making the long treck up the mountain road and into Riften, Sigrid discovered, to her dismay, that the target—Maramal—was a priest. A priest of Mara, no less. <em>I should have known, <em>she thought to herself, as she threw the first punch. For a man who had dedicated himself to the worship of the Goddess of Love, Maramal had a surprisingly heavy fist, but he was no fighter. It was not long before he begged for mercy. As she helped him up from the floor of the temple, ignoring the horrified shrieks of the Priestess of Arkay, Sigrid felt rather embarrassed about the entire situation. "Sorry, Father," she said. "Business is business."

"Just leave me alone," the priest said, humiliation trembling in his voice.

Sigrid, a woman who had cheerfully slaughtered men and women who'd never looked at her askance in their lives, felt bizarrely _guilty_. "All right," she said, and mumbled, "I just wanted you to know it was nothing personal," as she walked towards the door of the temple of Mara, "But just keep your toes in line, or I'll have to come back."

Someone was going to get an earful from _her_.

* * *

><p>When she finally made her way back to Jorrvaskr, loaded down with bear and wolf pelts, she found Farkas in the main hall of Jorrvaskr, looking contemplatively down at his sword.<p>

"I took care of the problem in Riften," Sigrid told him.

"Kind of fun to push people around sometimes, isn't it. Good work, sister," Farkas said, totally oblivious to the fact that she was still seething with fury.

"You could say that," Sigrid said, trying to hide her irritation. She'd have to get out of here, and _soon_, or she was going to say something that she regretted.

""Some people don't think I'm smart. Those people get my fist. But you, I like," he said, smiling.

"Thank you," Sigrid said uncomfortably. "I'll take my leave, then."

Finished with one brother, she immediately sought out Vilkas in the training grounds. "You sent me to beat up a _priest_," she growled.

"Why, did he give you any problems?" Vilkas asked, bland as could be. "I know he can throw a punch but I would have thought a tough, seasoned adventurer like _you_ would be able to handle that without any—"

"No, but—a priest? Of _Mara_?"

"That's the nature of mercenary work," Vilkas replied smugly, "You don't get to pick and choose the contracts. If you've got a problem with a that, then maybe this isn't the right line of work for you."

"Don't pretend I haven't been doing this just as long as you have. You picked that particular job just to humiliate me," Sigrid said accusingly. You _skeever-shit_, she added, under her breath. For a moment something crackled in the air between them: perhaps he had intended to humiliate her, but what could she do about that? The fact that he enjoyed the power imbalance to such a degree made her hold her tongue. She knew what men like this one could do when you challenged them—she'd have to bide her time, act wisely.

Vilkas merely smiled, shrugged, and left her in the living quarters of Jorrvaskr to seethe in silence.

* * *

><p>Over the next few weeks, he did his level best to make her life utterly miserable. Vilkas saw to it that Farkas and Aela only gave her the messiest or the easiest jobs, or both, and she was forced to take them without comment. When he got the chance he sent her on embarrassing errands around Jorrvaskr, too—Sigrid had never fetched so many swords or glasses of ale or sharpened so many daggers. If she was seen to be a complainer or malingerer, she could say goodbye to these comfortable living quarters and regular hot baths, the latter alone being enough to keep her there. In the meantime, she bit her tongue and attempted to avoid worrying about whether the sad excuses for work she'd been given were enough to build a name, keep her head down, and avoid the older twin all together.<p>

There were other problems, of course, but that was to be expected: after so many years of either working alone or having bad experiences with mercenary company leaders, she found it difficult to adjust to having men and women around her at all hours, to being required to _report_ to those higher up in the ladder. At first she avoided it, if she could, until Aela gave her a stern talking-to. After that, she reported when necessary but avoided socializing with the others if she could help it. Torvar's drunken bravado, Njada's sarcastic standoffishness, and Ria's eager hero-worship of everyone and anyone with a larger sword than she did not make the newer recruits an appealing prospect for Sigrid, who preferred a quiet corner to drink her ale and did not enjoy being looked at with dewey, young eyes that begged for tales of adventures. Whenever Ria asked Sigrid to tell her a story of her travels, the older woman was hard pressed not to tell her what extended battles were _really_ like: the weariness of your arm, the filth, your cheerful friends dying in your arms if you weren't careful enough.

She adjusted to it as best she could, and as compensation, spent more time at the smithy. Adrienne Avenicci proved to be a masterful smith, though even in her own view, not quite as good as Eorlund. What she _could_ provide, however, was access to the smithy. Sigrid would never have dreamed of asking Eorlund for time at the Skyforge, but in return for help around Warmaiden's: stoking the fires, manning the bellows, smelting ore, Ulferth War-Bear and his artistan wife allowed Sigrid to use the forge to supplement her income by constructing armor and weapons. And it wasn't just the money that endeared these times to her, the contemplative pleasure of muscles aching as she hammered out a sword, sweating in the heat of the forge and the sun, could not be traded for anything.

It was here that Aela found her again late one evening: Sigrid didn't even hear her coming. Unsurprising, given how loud the forge could be, and the tunnel vision that she tended to get when working on a new piece of armor. She turned to temper the sword in the cool water that Adrienne kept near the forge for that particular purpose, and almost dropped the white-hot weapon in surprise. Standing there as though she had materialized out of the dark was Aela the Huntress, dressed in her usual furred armor, looking fresh as a daisy.

"Hello, whelp," she said.

"Good evening, Aela," Sigrid said, "How may I help you?"

"You've been doing well on making a name for yourself," Aela said, arms crossed over her chest, "In fact, Skjor was looking for you earlier—I think he has a particular job for you as your final test. And you've tolerated Vilkas very well considering the fact that he's been particularly, er, hard on you."

"There's a 'but' here, isn't there?"

"Perceptive," Aela said dryly. "Yes. Well. The _concern_ that Skjor and I have, for one, is that you're not adequately—socalizing."

"Socializing," Sigrid repeated flatly.

"You see, the Companions are just that—we're not only mercenaries, we're _Companions_. We're shield-siblings. And if you don't know your sibling, if you can't trust them, if you haven't drunk with them or bled with them, how can you _fight_ with them? When it comes time to draw blood, there's no one in Skyrim I'd rather have at my back. Being a Companion means waking up every day knowing that you could die, and having to earn your life by clawing for every breath. _With_ your family."

"Hmmm," Sigrid said, momentarily thinking about turning and fleeing right then. It seemed she had not joined a mercenary's guild, but a cult. "All right. What must I do?"

"Drink with us," Aela said. "Train with us. Don't spend all of your time at the smithy or testing your steel on the plains of Whiterun. Smile a bit. Make a joke. Relax—we're here to guard your back, not to stab it. I like you, my girl—you've got spirit—but at there _is_ a difference between being a mercenary and being a Companion, and I'm not sure if you've learnt it yet."

What could she say to such a speech? She knew that Aela was right, however much the idea of "relaxing" around a group of relative strangers felt inutterably _wrong_. Brief flashes of corpses on the ice, corpses in the mud fluttered across the backs of her eyelids, and a brief shiver across her shoulders reminded her of what happened when one _relaxed_. When one valued a group over one's own survival. "I'll come back to Jorrvaskr when I've finished with this sword. It's an order Adrienne contracted out to me, not something I'm working for my own pleasure."

"See that you do," Aela said, and clapped her companionably on the back. "Soon-to-be-Shield-Sister."

_Sweet Talos, what have I gotten myself into_?

* * *

><p>Vilkas could rarely remember having had so much fun with a new whelp. Ria hadn't been nearly this entertaining; making that girl miserable had been a little bit like kicking a puppy. She responded to everything with a pained eagerness that made him turn away in embarrassment. The new one was different—she took everything he dished out with fire in her eyes and a look that said <em>I will kill you one day<em>. It was this look that kept him motivated to keep her sword-fetching, sending her out on embarrassingly simple jobs that a puppy could have managed, and reminding her of exactly where on the ladder she stood. Although he could practically hear hear biting her tongue, she never responded in the way he knew that she would like, and that especially was satisfying to him. He told himself it was because

"You don't think," Farkas said one evening after dinner, as they nursed mugs of mead, "That you aren't just trying to get her to attack you again?"

"Why would I do that?" Vilkas demanded.

"Hmm, I don't know," Farkas replied mildly. "You know yourself best of all, brother."

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," Vilkas said, and shoved the chair back abruptly, stalking from the room. As he left, passed Aela, who was coming into the dining hall.

"Seen the new-blood?" she asked.

"No, why would I?"

"Told her to come and be more _social_ with us," Aela said, with a tiny and only slightly evil grin, "But I haven't seen her yet. Last I saw she was finishing up at Avenicci's smithy."

"I'll find her for you," Vilkas said. Not only would it provide another opportunity for tormenting the arrogance out of that hulk of a woman, but it would give him a chance to clear his head in the fresh air: as the seasons turned, it was too easy to stay within the confines of the hall drinking into the night, forgetting how many mugs one had had. The streets of Whiterun in this turning season were a relief from the stifling indoors, the snap of winter in the air, the smell of woodsmoke. With a groan, he realized that one of the things he loved best about the winter was running through the snow as a wolf, feeling it crunch beneath his paws, and knowing that this would be a pleasure denied to him from here on in. The genuine regret that he felt worried him, and to cover it up he stalked down to the Plains District, barely acknowledging the sometimes-awed greetings from the Whiterun guards, many of whom were little more than whelps themselves.

He found his quarry just leaving the smith's, covered in forge-filth. She looked up when she saw him and her eyes narrowed, already tensed and on guard—he found this strange, since the overwhelming emotion that he'd seen in her face as she bid goodbye to Adrienne and Ulferth had been—calm? "Hello, whelp," he said brightly.

Her mouth twisted as she looked at him and said, "What is it now?"

The bluntness, or perhaps the gentle fuzz of the cups of mead he'd shared with his brother, surprised an honest answer from him, without any of the sarcasm and sadistic glee that would normally have accompanied the words. "I've come to fetch you," he said. "Aela said you're supposed to be socializing."

The woman merely shook her head, dismayed. "I _told_ her I was finishing up a job for Adrienne."

"A job?"

"I've been helping out a bit around the smithy in exchange for the use of the forge," she said, shoulders set as though expecting him to challenge her. It was then that he realized that she was not wearing armor, but normal work-a-day clothes and a blacksmith's apron. She looked—not smaller, nor slimmer but—a little softer. The short-cropped hair plastered against her skull with sweat, the warpaint that she always wore smudged in with smoke from the forge.

"I didn't know you were a smith," Vilkas said.

"There's a hell of a lot you don't know about me," Sigrid replied, and he could tell that she desperately wanted to include some epithet like _asshole_ at the end, and the fact that she held it back made him grin. Even when he was being polite there were still opportunities to enjoy himself, it seemed.

"That seems to be the case," he replied blandly, and was rewarded when she glanced at him, sharply, suspiciously. It was then that he realized that the forge had died down and they were still standing there outside of Warmaiden's, in the darkened streets. He hoped no one would get the wrong idea. "In any event, come—I told Aela I'd fetch you, and I always keep my word."

"Hmm," she said noncommittally, as they began the walk back to Jorrvaskr. Though most of Whiterun was now abed, there were still the usual night-denizens, the warriors, the guards and the travelers, who were up and about, at their business. They were almost to the main market place, just before the Bannered Mare, when the woman suddenly and inexplicably swore under her breath and ducked behind a bush.

Bewildered, Vilkas raised his eyebrows and asked, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Shhh," the bush hissed at him. "Don't let her hear you!"

He looked at the road and saw only Lydia, the Jarl's loyal soldier, heading up the road towards Dragonsreach from wherever she'd come from. "Who? Lydia?" he asked.

"Shut _up_," growled the bush.

"She's gone," Vilkas said, as he watched Lydia walking up the stairs to the Wind District, "Or at least, we're out of her line of sight."

Sigrid's head emerged from behind the bush, gradually, just the top of her head and eyes peeking over its edge. "If you're lying to me, so help me Talos, I'll—"

"Easy," Vilkas said, struggling not to laugh—the situation was so patently absurd that it was sincerely difficult. The image of the mighty, confident warrior hiding behind a bush like a frightened child, from Lydia of all people, was too much. "Want to tell me what the hell all of that was about?" he asked. "If you don't, I can think of a number of chamber pots and privy rooms that could use mucking out…"

"You wouldn't," Sigrid growled.

"Oh, I would," Vilkas said, and wondered briefly how he had ever entertained himself before they'd acquired this whelp.

Defeated, Sigrid sighed as she stood up, brushing leaves from her apron. "If she saw me, she'd never leave me alone," she muttered, "I just avoid her when I can."

"You?"

Sigrid's response was an inaudible mumble. "I can't _hear_ you," Vilkas said pleasantly.

"I _said_," Sigrid repeated, teeth gritted together, "She's my _housecarl_."

"Housecarl?" he said, momentarily surprised. "But that would mean you're a—"

"Thane," Sigrid said, cutting him off, "Yes, I know. Don't say it so damn loudly. I'm not proud of it."

"_You_?" Vilkas said.

"Yes. After I killed the dragon and—oh, I forgot you weren't around for that," Sigrid said wryly. "Well, I try not to, ah, remind anyone of the fact."

"Really."

"Really. I just—that's not _me_," Sigrid said uncomfortably, "And besides, as soon as Lydia sees me, it's _my thane _this and _sworn to carry your burdens _that and I'd never get _anything_ done. Besides, have you ever seen a thane who—well, like _me_?"

"I can't say that I have," Vilkas said, before the grin shifted across his face. "But you realize that if you put _one toe_ out of line in the future—I know exactly how to make you sorry."

"You wouldn't," she said, horrified.

"I would."

"You bastard."

"Possibly."

"I _hate_ you."

"I know," he said cheerfully. "Come on, whelp. Come back to Jorrvaskr and humor Aela. And don't forget to talk to Skjor, I believe he had something for you."

* * *

><p>Later that night, Sigrid finally managed to break away from the group—Aela hadn't been lying when she said that the Companions were a sociable lot—and made her way down to the bowels of Jorrvaskr to find Skjor.<p>

"There you are," he said, rising from the table, where plans had been laid out before him, strongholds marked off with small red dots.

"You wanted to see me?" Sigrid asked, curious. She'd gotten to know most of the Companions at least a little over the last few weeks, but Skjor remained an aloof enigma. He spent much of his time in the field, and there was a feral quality to his brusque manner and blunt gaze that set her a bit on edge.

"I did," he said, speaking quietly—in Jorrvaskr, the walls often had ears. "Your time, it seems, has come."

"What do you mean?" Sigrid asked, suspicious in spite of herself. If this was something Vilkas had put him up to, she would finally snap and punch him in the face.

"Last week a scholar came to us. He said he knew where we could find another fragment of Wuuthraad, the legendary axe of Ysgramor. He seemed a fool to me, but if he's right, the honor of the Companions demands that we seek it out," Skjor said, pointing at a spot on the map.

"What does this have to do with me?"

"I like your spirit," he said heartily. "We've decided this will be your Trial. Do well, and you'll be counted among the Companions. Farkas will be your shield sibling on this venture, whelp. He'll answer any questions you have. Try not to disappoint. Or to get him killed." That last sentence was accompanied by a grim chuckle, as though it had happened—or almost happened?—before.

"I won't disappoint," Sigrid said, as he waved her off to her room to ready herself for the journey. She went through the familiar motions of girding herself for battle, the ritual strangely comforting: binding her breasts so they'd lay tight and flat beneath her armor, settling the chest plate on over her head, making sure the straps were fastened tightly. Sliding on the gauntlets and boots. Checking the point of her sword.

Farkas was already waiting for her at the door as she emerged. "I hope you've readied yourself."

"You're going to be my shield-brother?" Sigrid asked, wary. He looked as though he could handle himself in a fight: he was one of the _biggest_ men she'd ever met, certainly, but that didn't necessarly mean he knew how to use his size. One-on-one missions always made her the uneasiest; not only would she have to watch his back, and his alone, but she'd have to rely on him to watch hers. _Aela couldn't have planned it better if she tried_, Sigrid thought sourly to herself. Instead, she thought of the possibility of owning property, that home dangling just out of reach, to motivate herself.

"So I'm told," Farkas said, and nodded sharply. "Let's see if you impress. Come on. Dustman's Cairn isn't far from Rorikstead, so it's a bit of a hike but not too far. I want to get there before anyone knows we're coming for it…"


	9. Tests

__**Author's Note: Thank you guys again for all of your kind words! I'm not terribly happy with all of this chapter unfortunately, it was a lot of fight scenes and I have a lot of ideas for things later in the story that I REALLY want to get into, but I can't until I get through some of this game stuff, haha. :( Anyway, hope y'all continue to enjoy.**

* * *

><p><em>There feeds he full on the flesh of the dead,<br>And the home of the gods he reddens with gore;  
>Dark grows the sun, and in summer soon<br>Come mighty storms: would you know yet more?_

—The Poetic Edda, _Völuspá_, translated by Henry Adams Bellows

* * *

><p>That night Vilkas dreamed uncomfortably of wolves and men, of dragons and blood. He could see the mist of Hircine's realm and the eternal hunt beckoning to him. It would be so easy to drift into it, to allow the beast-blood to answer the call—and then, in the dream, he realized he was dreaming. "Sod off," he said, and saw Hircine's horned face, laughing at him before it faded away into the mist. A dragon emerged from the shadows, breathing fire, and a sturdy figure dressed in bones placed itself between him and the beast, sword raised. Frost flowed from beneath the helmet and the dragon reared onto its hind legs and screamed. "I'm dreaming," he said, as he felt the heat of the dragon's breath crisping his skin into blackness, and the armored figure whirled around to look at him.<p>

His eyes snapped open before he could see its face, and just as abruptly, he woke, sweating.

Nightmares had rarely plagued him, even after Jergen had found them in the necromancers' circle. Usually when he dreamed of wolves, the noises and smells were comforting, and when he woke he remembered the feel of the wind in his fur, the taste of blood. Now, since he had avoided transformations, the dreams left him unsettled, feeling at once that he was missing a vital piece of himself, and that the call of the blood held a dangerous trap into which it would be too easy to fall.

_Pull yourself together_, he thought, and slid from the bed.

Dawn broke, finding him on the practice grounds, going through the motions of exercise: push-up after push-up until he was more concerned with keeping his faltering arm still, supporting his entire weight than with remembering dreams, nightmares, or philosophical concerns. This was the way a warrior should be: devoid of worries, cares. Focused only on the burn of muscle and the sound of his breath in his ears, drowning out even the clatter of Whiterun waking to face the day. Not quite loud enough to drown out the sound of footsteps in the courtyard. From the slightest hint of a limp, and the heavy weight, he knew it was Skjor, braced himself for the inevitable boot to the back—when it came, he rolled with it, using the momentum to propel himself to his feet and face his "attacker."

"Found a Silver Hand hideout not far from Whiterun, a little past Secunda's Kiss," Skjor said.

"Yeah?" Vilkas replied, "And what d'you want me to do about it?"

"We're going to kill _all_ of them," Skjor said, with the sudden, crooked smile that was much more terrifying than any glare he could direct. Like many of the Companions' grins, it was full of teeth. "My informant has a suspicion there might be some _useful_ plans, as well."

"I require but a moment to ready myself," Vilkas said, and went down to the Living Quarters to properly dress himself. As he did so, he frowned: from the time that he had been inducted into the Circle over fifteen years ago, the Silver Hand had been a concern. They knew the secret of the Circle, somehow, though Kodlak said sadly that he had no idea how the secret had originally been exposed. The sad truth of the matter was that knowledge of the existence of the Circle meant that there had been a traitor in their ranks, somewhere, in the depths of time: for even Kodlak had fought the Silver Hand as a whelp, still wet behind the ears. In recent years, however, Vilkas had seen an increased presence and aggressiveness of the Silver Hand. Where once they had been mere bandits, violent and cruel, yes, but disorganized—they now had strongholds, leaders, and plans. When you cut down one of them five others sprang up in his place, all screaming for spilled beast-blood. _But I do so love fighting them,_ Vilkas thought grimly, for no matter how violent their deaths, he felt them justified in every single drop of blood drawn. Especially after having seen the torture chambers where innocent lycanthropes lay broken and racked upon instruments that only a man could have imagined.

No, he would not feel bad about killing them. Not a bit.

They found the camp without much trouble, and Skjor immediately changed to his wolf form to take on the Silver Hand, in defiance of their silver weapons. Vilkas, true to his promise to Kodlak, did not change, though watching Skjor ripping a Silver Hand member to pieces between his claws made his blood sing out, as though every particle of it attempted to force his bones to shift. He resisted. Instead he fought with what he had remaining: the strength of his arms, the fire in his heart. The edge of his sword. This encampment was a small one; the Silver Hand had not had the time to build it up like some of the previous fortifications, and when it was over, Skjor's body wracked with change as he became a man again, though a man stained about the mouth with the blood of his fellows.

As Skjor cleaned himself up, Vilkas found the leader's tent and rifled through the meager belongings. The plans they'd been looking for were concealed within a hidden compartment attached to the bottom of the chest's lid, and he read them, frowning. It looked as though the group, who had previously been little more than bandits, were growing in numbers, as the Companions had suspected. What was worse, however, is that they seemed to be gaining funding from some unnamed source, and that they'd been speaking with Vigilants of Stendarr. A possible alliance had been arranged, though had yet to be finalized: the papers hinted tantalizingly of a meeting in person.

As Vilkas read through the plans, Skjor had finished dressing himself, and came into the tent to look down upon the papers himself. "This disturbs me, Vilkas," he said, frowning.

"It doesn't look good," he agreed. "But we've always stopped them before, we'll stop them again." _But we had Kodlak then_, he thought, treacherously. _We had Jergen. There were more of us. We are…diminished._ Unbidden, he thought of his brother and the new blood, out questing after a fragment of Ysgramor's axe, and sighed.

"And I noticed you did not take the beast form," Skjor said.

"No," Vilkas said.

"Aela said you didn't the last time either. In fact, by my count, you haven't since coming back from Markarth." Skjor's tone was not accusatory, but there was an uncomfortably intent look upon his face. "Why?"

For a moment, Vilkas thought about lying to him. But how could he? "Kodlak asked that the Circle give up the transformations until he is able to find a cure," he admitted. "My brother and I agreed to his wish."

Skjor spat on the ground, and growled low in his throat, a noise more beast than man. "That's what Aela and I suspected. The old man's getting weak. The rot's affecting his brain." He stalked from the tent, shoulders tense and head down. Vilkas followed him, hoping he hadn't said the wrong thing. Kodlak and Skjor had always been as one, though the older man was more patient, less prone to the fury of battle. What would be the fate of the Companions now, if even the Circle fractured?

It did not bear thinking about.

Vilkas followed Skjor silently from the camp, ignoring the bodies that surrounded them.

He did not like change.

But change seemed to find him, twining about his legs like a loyal dog, whether he liked it or not.

* * *

><p>Sigrid and Farkas left Whiterun together before the sun rose, though it trembled on the horizon, just below the unending line of scrubby tundra. She glanced sideways at him as they walked quickly through the gate, but he stared straight ahead, impassive as a statute. Unused as she was to looking <em>up<em> at a man, she found the perspective amusing; against her volition a small smirk cracked the corner of her mouth. Farkas looked down at her and said, "Something funny?"

"No," Sigrid said, "Just a thought."

"All right," said Farkas, and asked no more questions.

After years of fighting mostly on her own she felt strange having a companion beside her, especially one as _physically present_ as Farkas. She felt acutely aware of the heavy tread of his feet on the grass, the shifting of his armor—even his breath. As she jogged across the plains she kept a wary eye on the horizon, periodically looking across it and over her shoulder to make sure that no one would sneak up on them. Wide-open expanses like this always made her wary, for they were essentially vulnerable on all sides, totally visible for miles. Farkas seemed unconcerned, but then perhaps Sigrid would feel the same if she were roughly the size of a horse.

She ran faster to see if she could lose him, to avoid the idea that this man was considered a _shield-sibling_. What did the term mean, anyway? She had fought with plenty of men and women over the years and some of them had been her friends, but they would never have pretended to be anything other than what they were: hired swords, making a living by their wits. Many of them had died despite their best efforts and she remembered with what little emotion many of their comrades displayed. Things she could not forget: J'Hanir's bloodied corpse twitching as Alberic and Gathal fought over bits of his armor. She wondered, briefly, who the Companions thought they were fooling. Mercenaries were but one death away, one coin away, from _that_.

"Slow down, shield-sister," Farkas said, catching up with her. "You don't even know where Dustman's Cairn _is_."

For a moment, she thought she could catch a hint of humor in his eyes, but it quickly faded beneath that bland deadpan seriousness. Sigrid began to have the sneaking suspicion that perhaps Farkas was not as stupid as everyone seemed to think he was. What was the saying her father had always murmured to her, when she lost her temper and he hoped to encourage her towards calm? _Still waters run deep_? "Lead the way, shield-brother," she replied, the irony thick on her lips.

It was not a difficult journey; though they were stopped, briefly, by hungry plains-wolves, she made short work of them. Weighted but lightly by her armor and little else, she found that though she kept a steady pace, she tired little. _Thank Talos you didn't get _too_ out of shape, what with all of this dragon-fighting. _Dustman's Cairn turned out to be a lowered hole in the ground ringed by crumbling stone obelisks that marked its location. She peered over the edge and instead of taking the stairs, jumped from it, landing hard on the ground. Farkas followed her at a more leisurely pace, and glanced at the door, breathing deeply.

"Careful when you go inside. Our contact _said_ that no one had found this site yet, but it smells like…silver."

"Aye," Sigrid agreed, and put her hand on the knob of the door, almost expecting some kind of shock or trap to fell her. Nothing happened, and so she opened it with a little laugh at her own silliness. "Come on. No use waiting out here…"

The stairs curved down into a large, open room, well-lit by candles and torches. A table with a few books scattered over it, as well as some health potions, indicated that someone had been there, and settled. Sigrid rifled through a chest and found more evidence of recent habitation: bits of armor, new and unrusted, and some food.

"Looks like someone's been digging in here. And recently," came Farkas' rumbling voice from across the room, as he carelessly threw the books onto the ground after having discerned that there was nothing of interest there for him. She wondered, briefly, if there was _ever_ a book that would interest him. "Tread lightly," he added, as she went towards the opening of a curving tunnel.

She recognized the low barrows instantly: they were in another crypt, and she sighed. _Of course there would be draugr_, Sigrid thought, _because nothing can ever be easy._ She drew her sword with a whisper of steel on leather, holding it ready in her hand as she strode around the twisting edges of the tunnel.

"Be careful around the burial stones," Farkas said, "I don't want to haul you back to Jorrvaskr on my back."

"I'm not afraid of a bunch of moldy old corpses," Sigrid said, with a sniff. "They aren't so tough. No imagination. No _fire_."

"Just frost, apparently," Farkas said, as, rounding the corner, they were attacked by a draugr wight and and its friend, who instantly lifted its hand to direct blindingly cold beams of frost in their direction.

"As I said, piece of cake," Sigrid said, whirling to face the threat. "Fought one of these lads in Bleak Falls Barrow and he wasn't so tough now, was he?" she asked, shield up to block the heavy clash of the draugr's sword. "Was that your old grandda?"

"Dir mey!" the draugr growled in its guttural tones, like the muscles of its throat had withered and it forced the air up through sheer force of will alone.

"I could do this all day," Sigrid said, as she blocked again. It really would be possible, she thought, to just allow the thing to keep hitting her shield; it didn't seem to have any concept of feinting or moving or attempting to get around her guard. Up and down, up and down, went the sword as she toyed with it, before finally, seeing that Farkas had dispatched the wight, thrusting forward and slamming her shield into its stomach. In the same movement, she drove the sword through its face. Its skull crumpled in a pop of cascading dust and bone, and it collapsed to the floor, a lifeless dead body once more.

Farkas watched her, not appreciatively, but measuring, as though weighing her reactions. Oddly, she felt that she had been found wanting, but all he said was, "Nasty work, these."

They found yet another turning tunnel, and more draugr. This time she tried to find a rhythm with her companion, standing back to back as they faced the undead. It was not a perfectly smooth process: she didn't yet have a feel for how he would react; her style was much more aggressive, while he tended to hang back and let the enemy come to him. But eventually they had a better idea of how to do it: she thrust her sword into the low coffins as they went down the tunnels, putting down the undead before they had a chance to rise. Eventually, they came to a wooden door, with another tunnel leading downward to another large room, with an enchanting table and several potions strewn around. A gate barred the rest of the way.

Sigrid began to search for a way to lift the gate, a pull chain or a lever or _something_ while Farkas examined the other side of the room. These dungeons all looked alike after a while, with their dank stone and hanging moss. Eventually, in a small alcove, she found a lever. "Ah!" Sigrid exclaimed, triumphant. "I think I found something." As she jogged into the alcove and tugged the lever down, a gate, with metal creaking from long disuse, fell down with a _thud_ of displaced weight and trapped her there. She could see, across the hall, that the other gate had opened. "_Fuck_!" Sigrid exclaimed, as she attempted to pull the lever in the opposite direction to free herself.

"Now look what you've gotten yourself into," Farkas said, grinning. "Sit tight, and I'll find the release." To his credit, though he was smiling as he began to walk towards the newly-opened gate. Suddenly, however, he froze. "What was that?"

Men and women poured into the room, surrounding the Companion as he stood in front of the gate. Sigrid slammed her fist in frustration against the metal, cursing as she felt the impact all through the bones of her hand. She attempted to rattle the cage with her hands as the bandits circled around him, growling threats like, "It's time to die _dog_" and "We knew you'd be coming here"—that one made her pause, for as far as she knew, they had not been followed, nor seen any living creatures in the bowels of this cairn so far—"Your mistake, Companion!" There must have been eight or nine of them, though it was hard to tell because unlike the draugr they were in constant motion, circling him, keeping just out of her line of sight.

Farkas seemed unperturbed as he watched them circling him, his teeth bared in a disturbing smile.

"Let me out of here, Farkas, and I'll help you kill them," Sigrid said, furious at being trapped behind the bars,

"Which one is that?" a woman asked a man in a horned helmet.

"It doesn't matter," the man replied, gesturing with his sword. "He wears that armor, he _dies_."

"Killing you will make for an _excellent_ story," the woman taunted Farkas.

"None of you will be alive to tell it," Farkas said, and then he _changed_.

Sigrid stared in surprise and horror as his body began to melt, and then expand, as though it collapsed in on itself before pushing out. She could hear the cracking of bone and the almost liquid squashing noise of his internal organs rearranging themselves. "What in fucking Talos' goddamn name is—" she said, her voice emerging in a strangled squeak. Fur sprouted from his body and his face and arms lengthened, the face into a snout and his arms into huge, dinner plate sized paws, tipped with vicious claws. "—a _werewolf_?"

"I'm going to put you down," Farkas growled in a horrible, mangled voice, made ragged by his fangs, before his tongue transformed and his voice became a growl. And then he was among them, his great arms bowling the bandits down like ninepins. Blood spattered against the wall, against the gate, and against Sigrid herself as he _ripped them apart_, just tore them with his claws, with his jaws. She was fascinated and horrified all at once, and could not look away, despite the pained screams and the clashing swords. Eventually all that remained was a ragged group of bodies and body parts on the ground, and the monster loped off into a corner. The man emerged, fully dressed in his armor, looking as though he'd barely broken a sweat. "Good enough!" he said, as he depressed another lever, and the gate lifted with a creak of rust.

"I hope I didn't scare you," Farkas said.

"What _was_ that?" Sigrid demanded, still staring at the bodies on the ground, shocked by what she had seen. And it took a lot to shock her, these days.

"It's a blessing given to some of us. We can be like wild beasts. Fearsome."

"Are you going to make _me_ a werewolf?" Sigrid asked suspiciously, hand inching towards her sword hilt.

"Oh, no. Only the Circle have the beastblood. Prove your honor to be a Companion." He smiled and waved a hand dismissively. "Eyes on the prey; not the horizon. Anyway, we should keep moving. Still the draugr to worry about."

"Uh huh," she replied, not totally convinced, but she followed him through the opened gate. "So do you want to tell me who those guys were?" she said. "Is this something I'm going to have to worry about?"

"They're the Silver Hand," Farkas said, "And if you're joining the Companions, then I guess you do. They aren't so fond of us."

"I can see that," she said, glancing over her shoulder at the bodies.

They made their way carefully through the dungeon, and the more time they spent together, in the ruins of Dustman's Cairn, the better she felt she knew him, and the more comfortable she felt fighting with him: strangely, seeing the transformation and witnessing that oddly intimate moment settled it for her, for this day at least. He was a steady presence, and made a point of watching her back when she ran forward to meet the Silver Hand with a battle cry, or when two draugr came at her from either side. The dungeon blurred into the interminable tunnels and wooden doors, more and more rooms that opened out into more tunnels. Silver Hand and draugr, it was all alike after enough time. Even the battle cries seemed to run together: "Tell Stendarr I sent you!" "I'll carve you into pieces!"

In one room, Sigrid yelled and kicked out her booted foot as a skeever lunged from the shadows, sharp teeth aimed for her leg. She cut through them, stepped on the head of one and felt its skull give way beneath her heel. In the next room, she could hear the tell-tale clicking of a spider's legs from the shadows, and the gleam of its eyes emerged. By now, Sigrid's arms had that leaden weight that warned her that she wouldn't be able to last much longer. But she could not take a moment, could not show a moment of weakness in front of Farkas, who would be judging her, and would be her advocate or her prosecutor before the rest of the Companions. As she had in the past, she pushed through the pain, finding some strange well within her that allowed her enough energy to push on down the tunnels, splashing through the shallow river that ran below the ground, culminating in a waterfall that fell from a skylight. Just that small breath of fresh air was enough, and she turned to Farkas with a cocky grin. "Ready to go, boy?"

"As ever," he replied.

"Kren, paal," growled a draugr, and they were joined in battle once more.

It was blessedly brief. She had reached that zone of mechanical response, responding without thinking. "Kren paal my fucking _arse_," she said, as she tugged her sword from the draugr's corpse.

The next tunnel, thankfully, had no further enemies, though when they reached an iron door at the end of another one of those empty rooms filled with neatly-wrapped corpses and embalming tools and the stench of decay, she sighed. "Farkas," she said, "This doesn't bode well. The last door is always the worst and I'm choosing to believe this is the _last_ door."

"Aye," he said. "You want the honors?"

"Why the hell not," she said, and shoved it open with one hand.

The room was huge, with a cathedral ceiling, and tombs lining the walls. She didn't need to place an ear against them to know that behind them lurked dead Nord warriors, waiting to come back through the thin stones that separated them from the world of the living. Despite the huge size of the room, the air felt close and fetid, and she tried not to breathe too deeply. In the center of the room a huge altar held shards of metal, which she assumed were the fragments of Wuuthraad that they had come for. And behind them… "Oh, no," Sigrid groaned, as she was drawn forward against her will.

"What is it?" Farkas asked, worried.

"That fucking wall," Sigrid said, trying to avoid looking at it.

"What about it?" Farkas said. "Looks like nonsense to me." Sigrid watched as he walked up to it casually, as though the damn thing weren't chanting loud enough to drown out the rest of the noise in the room. He touched it as though the carved wood said nothing. Meant nothing. So it was only she, then, that was lucky enough to feel the magic reaching out and gripping hold of her, shaking her. This wall felt different than the last: it burned, the heat of it searing her below the skin.

"It's not nonsense," she said, gritting her teeth. "It's dragon language."

"Well, don't look at it," Farkas said, as though it were completely and totally obvious.

"I—can't," she said, and finally raised her eyes. The more she experienced these strange things, the more she felt that the Greybeards were right: she might not know the path to her destiny, but it looked unlikely she would be able to escape it. The pull of this magic, of this power, was too strong, however much she didn't want it. Her hand shot out, steadying herself against the stone, as the word whispered in her head, _yol—yol—yol._ The overwhelming feeling was of flames, licking her skin.

"You okay, shield-sister?" Farkas asked, genuinely concerned.

"Yes," she said, taking a deep breath. "I'm fine. It's just the Word Walls are—intense."

"Well, as long as you're on your feet, let's take that fragment and get the hell out of here before more Silver Hand show up," Farkas said, and lifted up the fragments in his gauntleted hand. The moment he did so, she heard the tell-tale noise of coffins splitting open, and groaned. All of them, all along the room, all at once.

"Holy fuck," Sigrid gasped.

"A fight!" Farkas sounded almost _excited_, even after this hours-long crawl through the dungeon? He truly was inhuman.

Sigrid went to work, though she was too tired for the fierce battle joy. Farkas, on the other hand, was still cutting through the dead bodies as cheerfully as ever.

"Sigrid?" he asked, catching a heavy-handed chop by a draugr on the blade of his sword.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Ask you a question?"

"I don't know if this is really a good time," she said, kicking a draugr in the knees and bringing it to the ground before swinging her sword like a club and taking off its head.

Farkas pulled his sword from the dusty body and asked, "What's between you and my brother?"

"Nothing's between me and you brother," Sigrid said, momentarily shocked into immobility. A dead thing took the opportunity to rush her, and Farkas obliged her by cutting it down before it could reach her. "He hates me, and I don't take to being _intimidated_," she ground out, as more coffins split open, and she turned her attention to the wight rushing at her. "And that includes you, bucko. I'll _kill_ you."

"Hmm," Farkas said, though he did not sound as though he believed her. "He seems to be showing an unusual interest in you. That's all."

"I offend him," Sigrid said, and spat on the ground. The last of them were gone, and she sat down hard, taking the momentary lull to catch her breath. "He can't _bear_ the thought that a common thug like me is going to join his precious Companions."

"Hmmmmm," Farkas said again, and then held out a hand to help her up. "Well, I think you passed your test pretty damn well."

"Thank you," Sigrid said, though she couldn't ignore the rather searching expression in his eyes. For the second time that day, she had the distinct impression that Farkas was much more preceptive than he let on. And she didn't know if she liked it, especially when she could not see what he saw.

"Time to go home," he said, and smiled.

* * *

><p>Vilkas waited with the other members of the Circle at the bottom of the Skyforge, scowling. The whelp had done well at the Dustman's Cairn, and even he had to admit that her reactions to his torment had been honorable, and shown restraint. He still had his reservations about her, though, especially after Farkas had said that she seemed reckless in battle, given to rushing in with an insane light in her eye and a taunt on her lips. A furious warrior who enjoyed the thrill of that moment of danger, the moment of not-knowing if this might be the time you'd gone too far. That was all well and good—sometimes. But it could easily get you or your comrades killed. But it was not his decision to make: he had not vetoed her entrance, but he had not given his approval enthusiastically, either. He bowed to Kodlak's wishes in this as in all things.<p>

Tonight, he stood next to the fire, between Aela and Skjor, and watched the whelp come up the stairs of Jorrvaskr for her initiation.

She had at least cleaned herself up today, and though she still had a new gash scabbed over her forehead, her hair and face were scrubbed fresh, and her armor newly polished. There was a fierce, determined light in her eyes and she stood with her shoulders thrown back, defiant. As though daring him to say something to her, to turn a mocking smile in her direction. He saw now, so close to her and in the light of the flames, the faded blue ink of tattoos snaking around her arms, up her throat from the gorget of her armor. She was ugly, yes, but in the firelight and in the oath ceremony, she seemed almost like some primordial war spirit. _Stop it_, he thought, _the late hour and the celebratory mead have you thinking fancies._

Kodlak stepped forward, and though he seemed weak when seen in his quarters, in this night too he stood strong and dignified, and Vilkas' heart swelled with pride to look upon him. The old man intoned, his voice ringing out strong and true, "Brothers and sisters of the Circle—today we welcome a new soul into our mortal fold. This woman has endured, has challenged, and has shown her valor." His gaze raked over them, taking in each in turn: quicksilver Aela, taciturn Skjor, and Vilkas himself. "Who will speak for her? Would you raise your shield in her defense?"

Vilkas watched as his brother stepped forward, fist thumping on his chest before he responded with the traditional words, as so many Companions sponsors had done before him through the years: "I would stand at her back, that the world might never overtake us."

"And would you raise your sword in her honor?" Kodlak demanded.

"It stands ready to meet the blood of her foes," Farkas said.

Vilkas looked over at the woman again, sideways, so she wouldn't notice him watching. Her pale gray eyes were alight with the fire and possibly something else—he could not tell if it was tears. He frowned, as he always did when he couldn't puzzle something out. Her face looked odd: uncomfortable? Unhappy? He couldn't tell. That broad mouth had worked itself into a tightly set line, as though she were afraid to betray herself, some sort of insecurity. But the way she held herself bespoke only confidence.

"And would you raise a mug in her name?" Kodlak said, jolting him out of his examination.

"I would lead the song of triumph as our mead hall reveled in her stories," said Farkas.

"Then the judgment of this Circle is complete," Kodlak said, voice gravelly. The exercise had taken its toll on him, and so had the heavy emotion of this moment. He was tiring but stood straight as he ever had. "Her heart beats with fury and courage that have united the Companions since the days of the distant green summers. Let it beat with ours, that the mountains may echo and our enemies may tremble at the call!"

Vilkas joined his voice, however grudgingly, with the others. They intoned as one: "It shall be so."

Change was in the air, it was. It crackled in the air between them. It was coming for him, whether he liked it or not.


	10. Bandits

**Author's Note:** First of all, thank you guys so much for your kind words, reviews of any sort really make my day but some of you guys have just been so sweet. :) Sorry this took so long to update, I had to cut this chapter a little shorter than I had originally wanted to only because it was getting a bit out of hand and I haven't been able to write as much due to being busy with work and real life. I tried to link a picture of the style of Sigrid's tattoos, but I guess you can't do that here. They are really traditional Norwegian-style rune carvings. ALSO, the insult that appears later on in the chapter is actually a very old Icelandic insult and legally entitled the party being called it to a duel. It is basically calling someone unmanly. Anyway! Hope y'all enjoy this.

* * *

><p><em>In fashion of wolves it befits us not<br>Amongst ourselves to strive,  
>Like the hounds of the Norns, that nourished were<br>In greed mid wastes so grim._

—The Poetic Edda, from _Hamthismál,_ translated by Henry Adams Bellows

* * *

><p>The ceremony left her feeling strangely drained. Though her cynicism remained in full force, she had been strangely touched by the words that Farkas had intoned in the firelight. So long since she'd belonged anywhere, and the idea that she had a place <em>now<em> was both comforting and terrifying. More terrifying than anything else—during the ceremony she'd strongly fought the urge to walk out of Jorrvaskr, right then and there, flee into the darkness of the Whiterun plains, and high-tail it out of Skyrim all together. _And back to what,_ that treacherous inner voice thought, _nameless mercenary companies run by fools? Sleeping in the dust and the cold?_ She groaned; she was getting old, when the prospect of a comfortable bed and occasional companionship trumped her own survival instincts—especially since they were apparently with some major strings attached, namely the possibility of dealing with _werewolves_. And with Vilkas, who had been watching her with unreadable eyes throughout the entire ceremony, eviscerating her with his gaze.

Instead, she drank down the mug of ale they'd passed to her across the flames in three quick gulps, wiping the back of her mouth and passing it off to Ria, who coughed on a mouthful too large for her.

"Well, lass," said Kodlak Whitemane, his voice weary, "You're one of us now. I trust you won't disappoint."

"I won't, sir," she replied.

"None of that, none of that," Kodlak murmured. "We're all equals here."

She sincerely doubted that, having seen the way Vilkas swaggered around like he owned every beam in Jorrvaskr, and the quiet confidence with which Kodlak accepted the other Companions' deference. "About that…is it true? That the Companions are werewolves?"

Kodlak looked at her sharply, rheumy eyes narrowed. "I see that you've been allowed to know some secrets before your appointed time," he said, and though he looked concerned, even frustrated, his voice retained that grandfatherly jovialty. "No matter. Yes. It's true. Not every Companion, though. Only members of the Circle share the blood of the beast…" He sighed, long and slow, as he watched the Companions melting away from the meeting place; Aela and Skjor towards the Living Quarters, Farkas and his brother towards the tavern, and Ria looking between all of them as though she couldn't decide who to follow first. "Some take to it more than others."

Sigrid examined Kodlak carefully, trying to make out some sign of the wolf in him, as she could now see hints of it in Farkas. He seemed a kindly old man—a warrior, true, even if past his prime—but nothing about him betrayed the fact that if he tried, he could rip a man apart with his bare hands. "What about you?" she asked, wondering if her boldness would have consequences.

"Well, I grow old. My mind turns towards the horizon, towards Sovngarde. I worry that Shor won't call an animal to glory as he would a true Nord warrior… Living as beasts draws our souls closer to Lord Hircine. Some may prefer an eternity in his Hunting Grounds, but I crave the fellowship of Sovngarde."

"You're looking to cure yourself?" Sigrid asked, surprised. _Blessings_ did not usually require cures, did they?

"Yes," Kodlak replied quietly, "But it's no easy matter." And then he laughed, waving her concerns away. "But you don't need to listen to the worries of an old warrior. This day is to rejoice in your bravery!"

She couldn't trust herself to say anything: the words that would have emerged would have sounded ungrateful and out of place after the initiation ceremony. _It wasn't bravery; I'm just good at killing things. That's all I know how to do, all I've ever known how to do. I'm just doing what I've been _made _for_. But telling Kodlak that seemed like telling a small child that the Yulefather wasn't real; he believed so in the honor and glory of the Companions… Instead, she merely said, "Harbinger, I may have…responsibilities, that might require some…traveling. Will that be a problem?"

"No," he said. "Just inform one of the members of the Circle, or myself, before you go, so that we know not to parcel assignments out to you. The Companions are their own men, their own women, of course. You are free to go as you please… But speak to Eorlund if you want a better weapon than…whatever that is," he added, looking at her plain steel sword with something akin to pity.

"I will," she said.

She found Eorlund atop the Skyforge, still stoking its fires even at this late hour, with the ease of motion that came through years of work, of knowing the secrets of a particular forge and anvil, their heat, their small quirks. "I see you made it, girl," he said, "Took my advice, did you?"

"I tried," Sigrid replied.

He nodded, and gestured to the rack of finished weapons hanging near the forge. "It's tradition to give each new Companion a weapon from my forge, of their choice. They've provided me with such custom over the years that it's the least I can do… but only one, mind. Lose that or break it and you'll buy the next one. I'm not in the habit of extra handouts."

"Thank you," she said, and meant it. She'd been itching to pick up one of the Skyforge weapons since she'd brought Vilkas' sword up to be sharpened, for they were truly beautiful weapons, without much by way of frill or decoration. Oh, there was a certain utilitarian grace to the wrapped leather hilts and the rune-carved crossbar. But the true beauty lay instead in the fine grains of the steel and the perfect balance of them, a beauty best appreciated in use. She avoided the axes and the daggers and the greatswords, but even so, there were still a number of one-handed swords to choose from, most of them nearly identical to the casual eye. Sigrid was not a casual viewer, however. She picked up each one, under Eorlund's watchful gaze, and tested the balance for each, a few experimental slashes in the air, twists and parries. When she picked up the fourth one, she knew right away. "_This_ one."

The decisive tone coaxed a chuckle from Eorlund's grim mouth. "A fine choice."

"Thank you," Sigrid said, and meant it. The difference between life and Sovngarde often lay in the strength of a blade, and she knew instinctively that this was probably the best weapon she had ever owned, even better than the sword that the Imperials had stolen from her.

"Use it well, Companion," Eorlund said, as she threw him an ironic salute and loped down the stairs.

Her sleep that night was dreamless, so exhausted was she.

* * *

><p>Although many of the other Companions had already made their way to the sleeping quarters, Skjor and Aela among them, the brothers stayed up into the wee hours, as the candles burned down to stumps around them. The revelation that the Silver Hand had found the site of the fragments and had the time to set up camp in the crypts, even though Skjor's contact had said that no one else had yet discovered it, worried Vilkas. Had the contact been double-dealing? Skjor was reluctant to give them the man's name, but with the recent discovery that the bandit group had more funding and reach than they had assumed for so many years, Vilkas thought that perhaps some investigating might be warranted.<p>

"Not yet, I don't think," Farkas said, shaking his head. "Might spook him. Wait and see if something else goes _wrong_."

"But you could have easily been killed," Vilkas said. "Bad information like that is bloody dangerous."

"But I wasn't. No small part to the new-blood, for all you've got your smalls in a twist about her."

He couldn't help wincing at the unfortunate turn of a phrase, "Look, brother, that has nothing to do with it. _She_ has nothing to do with it. Whether she was there or not, either of you could easily have been killed in an ambush, if it's true that the contact has been playing us false."

"Could be killed in an ambush _any_ time," Farkas said, grining lopsidedly, "'S why they call it an ambush, right?"

Sometimes properly dealing with his brother required the patience of the Divines, which Vilkas had never possessed. Instead, he took a long drink, and frowned at the bar counter, and ignored that comment. "We can't afford to lose any more of us, Farkas. Kodlak can't fight anymore, and with Arnbjorn long gone and Jergen dead… Who do we have left? Torvar? Ria? That reckless new-blood? Half of them useless and the other half of them un-blooded."

"I think you're not giving them much credit," Farkas said. "Ria may be young and eager but she's a strong arm. And Torvar, when he's sober, is a good warrior. And I've fought with Sigrid. She's good, brother. For all she looks like a dragon chewed her up and spit her out. C'mon, brother, a little bit of a cheerful outlook wouldn't hurt you."

Vilkas scowled into his drink, and said only, "Someone around here has to think of the hard things, the uncomfortable things. It sure as hell ain't you."

* * *

><p>Sigrid settled into the routine as well as she could. There were not assignments every day, but often enough to keep her busy. She roamed out into the countryside to put down a bear that had been savaging the livestock, or a bandit leader who'd been savaging the farmers. She avoided the others as often as she could, still feeling strange and out of place amidst the camaraderie of Jorrvaskr: the jokes she hadn't been around long enough to understand, amidst people she barely knew and could not begin to try to know.<p>

After ascertaining that Sigrid had left Skyrim, Ria immediately began following her around like a lost puppy dog, peppering her with questions about Elsweyr and Cyrodiil, and the trees of the Black March. "But what was it _like_ to fight in a large battle?" Ria asked, as she sat perched on the wall of the training grounds, watching Sigrid throwing punches at one of the training mannequins.

She took a moment to wipe the sweat from her eyes with the back of her hand, squinting at Ria framed dark against the sun. "It's muddy," she said. "Very muddy. Fighting in the mud, sleeping in the mud. Your feet churn it up, men fall into it when they die, and then you find them again, when you're trying to sleep. Very _glamorous_." The fist that she threw at the mannnequin's cotton face had a vicious energy behind it that had been lacking.

"Oh," Ria said, deflated, before she perked up again, indomitable. "I killed a sabre cat the other day, but I've never killed a man before. What's it _like_?"

"Messy," said Sigrid.

Ria frowned at her, aware she was being difficult just for the sake of it, and settled on a different tack this time. "Well, regardless, I'm _so_ glad you're here now. I was the newest Companion before _you_ came around."

"I—" Sigrid began, but both women stopped speaking and looked up at the sound of footsteps. It was Vilkas, standing on the covered porch area of the training grounds, arms crossed over his chest and looking disapproving. Sigrid wondered briefly if his face was capable of any other expression, what he would look like smiling—and found that she couldn't even imagine it. Perhaps the stern lines of his mouth and forehead would break completely. Perhaps he would melt. A smile twitched at the corners of her lips unbidden, imagining that, and when he saw her his scowl only deepened.

"You. New-blood. Come here."

"I'm not a dog, Companion, to be ordered around in such a way," she said dryly, the unspoken _not like some_ hanging on the edge of the words—it did not need to be spoken, especially in front of Ria.

A growl of frustration was her reward as he narrowed his eyes. "Could you stop being contrary for the sake of it for one gods-damned moment?"

"Probably not," Sigrid said cheerfully, as she strolled over to where he stood, feeling Ria's incredulous gaze on her back. From the worshipful way the girl watched Vilkas on the practice grounds, she probably couldn't imagine that anyone would speak to him so. _Well, I'm not just anyone_, Sigrid thought mutinously to herself.

"A child of Solitude's been kidnapped by enemies of his father. They've sent a ransom demand, but the family doesn't think the kidnappers will release the boy alive," Vilkas said. "You're coming with me."

"Me?" Sigrid said, unable to keep the surprise from her voice, "Why me?"

"At the Harbinger's _suggestion_," Vilkas replied tersely. "Pack warmly. I'm leaving in an hour, with or without you."

* * *

><p>Vilkas couldn't tell whether he was relieved or disappointed when Sigrid was ready in under fifteen minutes, although he supposed those were the benefits of living like a vagrant: nothing to pack. She had spent the money she'd earned wisely, though; he could tell that from the sturdy but comfortable clothing that had replaced the rags, warm fur linings and all. A sword strapped to her hip and a shield slung over her back, above the light pack of extra supplies.<p>

"Ready to go, cap'n, on your _orders_," she drawled, throwing a sarcastic salute in his direction, and he took a deep breath and prayed to Talos for the patience to survive this mission without killing his traveling companion. He knew exactly what Kodlak intended when pairing the two of them together for a delicate mission: hopefully, the trek to the Pale would force them to bond or at least learn to tolerate each other. Vilkas knew what Kodlak intended, but he did not think it was going to work. And it was not going to be a short journey: the man who'd hired the Companions thought that, perhaps, his rivals might have set up camp in or around Fort Dunstad.

They were making brisk progress across the Whiterun plains before either of them spoke. Sigrid glanced at him side-long and asked, "Why aren't the parents asking the Solitude guards for help with this? They're probably closer. And more official. And definitely cheaper."

"The parents are extremely wealthy smugglers," he replied bluntly, "And this is a reprisal. The guard won't be taking the skin off of their nose for this boy, even if the parents felt comfortable talking to them. Funny what a man'll do to avoid a jail cell, even when his son is involved."

He watched her face darken, though she said nothing, the only sound remained their boots on the road and the faint whisper of the wind around them. After another pause, she asked, "How old is the boy?"

"Ten winters."

"That father should be damned ashamed of himself," was all she said.

Privately he agreed, though he would never say that aloud. A man should protect his own, but then again, this Imperial milk-drinker had probably never touched a weapon in his life, preferring to allow others to take the risks for him. He only hoped that the man's cowardice would not cost an innocent child his life. Unbidden, the vague memory of standing in the dark with his brother, knowing that no one would come to rescue them, that they were totally and completely alone. Strangely, he had not been frightened: there had been that moment of clarity, of knowing that _he_ would have to fight, even if they killed him. It had been at that point that Jergen had come upon the circle, and the relief he had felt at that moment had nearly polleaxed him. Whether or not, however, they would arrive in time for young Velwyn remained to be seen.

They traveled in silence for several miles, on the road towards Korvanjund. He watched her covertly, when she thought he was not doing so. This close and in the light of day, he could more easily see the tattoos on her neck and the backs of her hands. Faded blue talismans and traditional swirled motifs that often appeared on the hilts of swords, or the bows of ships, for luck. Fantastical creatures that hadn't been seen on Tamriel in eons, bees, gods and… _Dragons_. The lines disappeared beneath the hem and neck of her shirt and for a bizarre second, he wondered how much of her body they covered. As they walked she kept her eyes on the horizon, mostly, a frown knotting her forehead between her eyebrows, though she'd occasionally glance over her shoulder, scanning the area around them.

On one of those long assessing glances at the terrain, she caught him looking at her, and rolled her eyes. "Not going to get any prettier if you keep staring at me like that," she said, with that infuriating look of amusement and mockery all at once.

"I wasn't—" Vilkas started, and then sighed. He was. "I'm just trying to make you out."

"What's to make out?" Sigrid asked. "I'm a mercenary. You're a mercenary. You have some… misguided idea about me."

"Think I've got entirely the right idea about you," he said, as they came upon a little clearing of old ritual stones surrounding a small altar. As he spoke, they both heard the tell-tale hiss and saw the shimmer in the air of ice wraiths moving to attack. Instantly, both warriors had their swords out, moving almost in concert so that they stood back-to-back, and he had an eerie moment of unease at the rightness of it. She gave a glad battle cry as the ice wraith, skittering in the air, lunged for her even as its mate slithered at Vilkas' side. He pivoted to meet it head on, his greatsword cutting it from the air in an instant, and as he whirled around, he found that she too had dispatched the monster—had not even bothered to take her shield from its strap on her back. Now she nudged its shining remains with her toe, shaking her head.

"And what idea is that?" the woman demanded, sheathing her sword, totally unphased by that brief battle. "Out in the open with it, _shield-brother_."

He sheathed his own blade, broad fingers clenched and popping as he flexed his fists. "A homeless, peopleless mercenary, without morals, without honor. That's the idea that I _had_ of you, until Kodlak Whitemane said you were fit to become a Companion."

"Oh, and so now you don't think that anymore?" Sigrid snapped. "Kodlak Whitemane snaps his fingers and suddenly you change your mind? Oh no, my boy, it doesn't work like _that_. You think as little of me as ever, for as little _reason_ as ever."

"I've known your sort before," Vilkas replied, struggling to keep hold of his temper. Kodlak had always said that Vilkas gave in to his rage too easily, but it was so comforting to allow the warm red fog to envelop him, to allow the words to slash sharp as swords from his tongue. To avoid thinking of the consequences. "A man named Arnbjorn. A wild, rootless man, a man who Kodlak thought could be saved. Our _shield-brother._ We lost more than a few good men due to his…methods. He pretended to be one of us, but make no mistake, woman, he was _never_ one of us. And you—"

Sigrid stopped abruptly, and spat on the snow. "I don't know this Arnbjorn and I honestly don't give two bloody _shits_ about him. What I care about is—this—this childish bloody _attitude_." Eyes narrowed, she stalked up to him until they stood eye to eye and he could feel the heat of her breath on his face. One finger reached out and stabbed him in the chest. "Yes! I'm a mercenary! _Just like you_. I might have traveled more, but don't pretend like you know a damn thing about me, you child. You know what we call men like you on the battlefields? Men who sleep in comfortable beds, who have never even left their own country? We call them _argr_.And we offer them a soft blade!"

He bared his teeth, ready to grab her by the throat and shake. Or at the very least challenge her to a duel right then and there. "I—"

"You be godsdamned quiet, _argr_!" she interrupted him. "I've been bloody patient with you, I have, but now we're going to save a _child_, no matter who is paying us, and I would really rather not be distracted by wanting to kill _you_." The finger stabbed him continually in the chest, hard, a reminder of her rage. Her hands were practically trembling. "And you! You don't know a damned thing about me. You're no better than me! I might not have lived a perfect life, but I've lived an honorable life! I've tried to make my ancestors proud! And I've always kept my word. Just because I've lived rough doesn't mean I'm some _savage_."

He realized, belatedly, that she was yelling at him, and that he had grabbed hold of her hand and gripped it tightly, almost crushing her fingers. He could feel the bones beneath his palm, shifting beneath the pressure. What on Nirn would Kodlak think of him now, on the verge of brawling in the snow with a woman who was ostensibly a shield-sister? Not only giving in to his fury but embracing it so wholeheartedly? He took a deep breath, letting the chill of the air sear the inside of his lungs, as though that cold could cool his temper. He could not apologize, or admit that she might have had a point. Instead they stood frozen at that impasse, her eyes wide, his narrowed. And then she pulled her hand free suddenly, and whirled on her heel, and stalked off into the woods.

He followed behind her at a slower pace, watching the tight line of her shoulders disappearing among the trees. He could still hear her, though: a deaf grandmother could have heard her miles away, stomping through the forest like a giant. When he caught up to her, silently, and looked at her askance without saying a word, and she sighed and rolled her eyes but did not snap at him or throw a punch at his face (which, if he was being honest, he probably deserved), he knew that things had been momentarily smoothed out between them.

As they skirted the ruins of Korvanjund, dusted with snow and looking like a sinister child's toy in the distance, he said, "So you're from Winterhold, you said?"

"Yes," she said, suspiciously.

"Still have family there?"

"No," she said. "Never knew my mother. Da was a hunter, but he died when I was but a girl."

"Been back since?"

"No," she said. "This is the first time I've set foot in Skyrim since he died. Imagine that our little house is all ruins now, that's the way that town was going in the first place. Only thing that's still standing there is probably the College. Those damn mages will outlast all of us."

"Aye, that they will."

After another long period of uncomfortable silence, Sigrid asked, "A secret for a secret, then. You and Farkas—have you always lived in Whiterun?"

"No," he said. "We were found in Falkreath, before our sixth winter, about to become a sacrifice for some necromancers. I don't remember anything about our lives before that. A member of the Companions rescued us, and we've been at Jorrvaskr ever since." She did not say _I'm sorry_, for which he was grateful. That reaction seemed common: but there was nothing to feel sorry for, nothing to remember. He had his family.

The road branched off, one fork leading towards the mountains, and the other to the Weynon Stones, where he planned to camp for the night. Snow fell gently at first, then more heavily, cresting on their eyelashes and sticking in their hair, as the sun began to set.

The chill set in.

* * *

><p>Sigrid had no idea what to think about all of this. Vilkas was as changeable as a daedra, one moment furious and the next, almost civil. She still thought him an unrepentant arse, of course, but she had a clearer idea of why he was <em>so<em> protective of his precious Companions: they weren't just his brothers in arms, they were truly his family. They were all he had ever known. If she had had the chance to defend her own sweet father from an interloper, she might have reacted the same way. Well, not in the same way. But with more overt hostility. She rubbed her hand and frowned, remembering the bizarre quickening in her guts when he'd almost crushed it. _Pull yourself together, woman,_ she thought. _That one'll only bring trouble._

They set up a shelter in the lee of the Weynon Stones, mostly protected from the wind, and though the snow had let up a bitter chill still pervaded the air. Sigrid cleared some of the snow away, but the wood they were able to gather proved too wet to start a fire. Neither of them had any magical ability in the least, so it would be a cold night indeed, huddled in the fur-lined leather sleeping pelts that they had carried. Armor off and covered carefully, away from the worst of it, they lay down to spend a fitful night before moving on at the crack of dawn. Sigrid, who had grown up hunting in the snowy forests of Winterhold, found that even after years of tramping around the hot marshes of Argonia and the rain forests of Elsweyr, her innate ability to ignore the cold remained intact. Vilkas, used to the more mild climes of Whiterun Hold, fared a little worse. She could hear him grumbling to himself in the pelt, muttering about how this would be infinitely easier if he could _just_ make the transformation. _That's true,_ she thought, _a wolf's pelt would certainly fend off the cold more easily, better than a fire_.

A hint of her innate mischief and sense of humor struck then, as well as practical inspiration.

Whether he would allow her to do it, or whether he would throw her across the altar, would remain to be seen.

She stood up and slipped from the pelt, moved over a few steps, and slid into his, setting her sleeping fur atop them.

"What the _hell are you doing_?" he demanded, sounding more shocked than anything else. That was good, at least—rage would have been worse. But he didn't push her away.

"Oh please," Sigrid said, "You're freezing and this is the oldest trick in the book. It doesn't mean we've got to get _married_ after. Unless you want me to make an honest woman out of you," she added, teasing.

"You are without a doubt the most bloody _infuriating_ person I've known," he growled.

"You can thank me later," Sigrid answered with a yawn. "And now, if you _don't_ mind, I'm going to sleep. You can stay up and stew if you'd like. Right then."

"Right."

She could feel him warming, gradually, with the proximity to her, beneath the doubled cover. The shivering slowed, and she could even feel his tensed body relaxing after long moments of quiet with only breath between them. This close, she could feel every muscle as they unwound. There were quite a few of them, for he had a long, leanly muscled frame that on a less repellent personality, she could have found quite attractive. _Stop it!_ she thought to herself. _You're supposed to be going to _sleep, _not drooling over Skyrim's most eligible son of a bitch._

And so she went to sleep, because a soldier can sleep at a moment's notice.

It was not restful.

* * *

><p>His internal clock had never yet failed him, and it did not this day. When he woke in the morning even before the sun rose, he was blessedly, wonderfully warm. At first, that was the only thought that pervaded his sleep-fogged brain. When he became slightly more aware of his surroundings, he realized to his intense disgust that at some point during the night, he had wrapped his arms around her and her head was nestled on his chest, just below his neck. She was asleep, still, in repose looking strangely unlike her normal self. He could see now that her eyelashes were quite long, and the edges of the scars on her face ragged, mouth open slightly as she breathed. None of the mocking sarcasm or deep-seated cynicism remained there, and he thought, for a strange moment, that it could almost be a completely different person, lying so contentedly in his arms. It had been a long time since <em>any<em> woman had…

Her eyes opened suddenly and her whole body tensed, momentarily disoriented, and the sinking suspicion gripped him that she was going to instinctively attack him.

"Hey," he said, "None of that. Might I remind you that _you're_ the one who crawled into my bed roll, eh?"

"Oh yes," she said. "Your soft little Whiterun body couldn't stand a bit of cold, I forgot."

"Very bloody funny."

She disentangled herself from him and pulled herself up from their bed, "So do I have to pay a bride-price to your father now?" she laughed, "Or have I dishonored your family beyond repair?"

He groaned, "Enough, enough. You've made your point." His entire body ached, from the cold and the night on the ground. He _was_ getting old.

"Hmmm," she said, and though she did not taunt him further, he could see the edges of her eyes crinkled in a silent, grin-less smile. He watched her dressing in her armor again, the movements quick and economical, and he followed suit. They were on the road within moments.

Fort Dunstad loomed in the distance, and they would have the element of surprise. Rescues of this nature were always dangerous for they ran the risk of accidentally losing the hostage in the melee, or of the kidnappers deciding to cut their losses as rescuers approached. They doubled around the side of the fort, moving quickly and as quietly as possible, for the sun would soon rise, and with it, the bandits. The main section of the fort was a crumbling stone tower at either end of a rectangular walled keep, with a larger wooden wall built around it, with a small thatched roof building in between.

"He's probably being kept in the most secure part of the Keep," Sigrid whispered, as they snuck along the wooden fence. "The least crumbled tower?"

"Aye," Vilkas said. "Make for that. Kill any of the men you see, we can't afford to take prisoners."

The entrance of the Keep was blocked by wooden barricades, but Sigrid found it easy enough to jump them, the simple action bringing back innumerable memories of forts stormed in the past. With men she'd trusted more than this one. With comrades. A single bandit sat snoozing in a chair just past the barriers, the legs tipped back so that he leaned against the thatched building, a thick line of drool running down his chin. She ran for him: this called not for a sword but a dagger, kept in her boot, which she pulled out as she went. The man's eyes opened just as she reached him and he started to rise, but it was too late: she had already grabbed him by the hair and slit his throat. The body dropped to the ground as she sprinted to join him. The little thatched house held only one other man, sleeping on a pallet on the floor. The second watch. He died just as easily as the first, Vilkas' sword taking off his head in a quick sweep.

The closest tower's entrance was blocked by rubble and a quick scan of the courtyard showed that none of the bandits had remained without. "Idiots," Vilkas whispered, and silently, Sigrid agreed. Their defense was sloppy, their men were not quick to respond to threats. Hopefully, they would be able to recover the boy without further trouble. Whoever had hired them must not have thought very highly of the family's ability to recover him, if _this_ was the defense of the operation.

They sprinted across the courtyard, and found that the entrance was not at ground level, and that they would have to climb the battlements and run the ramparts to get there. The door was locked, so he threw himself against it, shoulder to the wood, and it gave way beneath his weight. She followed after him, and whispered, "Up or down?"

"I only see lights _up_," he replied.

At the top of the winding stairs they found another door, this time unlocked. The soft sounds of a child crying could be heard from within, but nothing else except for snoring. He looked at her and she nodded sharply, and with that, he threw it open and they rushed in. She took in the measure of the scene quickly: two men on either side of a boy, chained to one of them by a cuff. He looked up when they came in and his eyes widened, but he had the sense not to say anything. Hope and fear shone in his watery brown eyes, red-rimmed with tears, as Vilkas threw himself at the man to whom he was chained and Sigrid went for the other. In such close quarters swords would have harmed the child as well as the man, so with a twist of his big hands, Vilkas snapped the first man's neck and Sigrid's dagger found the neck of the other, twisting sharply. It was over almost before it began.

"Hold on, Velwyn," Sigrid said to the boy, "We're here to get you out. Just give us a chance to cut this chain."

_This is too easy_, she thought as she was suddenly grabbed from behind by a huge, rough hand, fingers crushing down on her neck in between the space of the gorget and her chin. She could hear another man coming down the hall behind him. _Shit_, they should have gone up first. A knife pressed against the other side of her throat, hard enough to draw blood.

"Let go the boy or I kill this'un," the man said. "I cut her throat an' rip her eyes out. And then I kill _you_."

She met Vilkas' eyes across the room. He stood totally still, having placed himself between the bandits and Velwyn. "Take the boy," she said.

"Shield-sister," he said slowly, "Don't do anything stupid—"

"Shield-brother," she said. "Stupid is my middle name."

"Sigrid! We can—"

"Shut the fuck up," growled the bandit, "I mean it, I'll fucking kill you both, and the boy."

"I've got it, shield-brother."

Everything after that happened very fast.

The bandit behind them lunged forward, throwing himself at Vilkas. Neither of them had had time to draw their weapons and it became an out-and-out grapple on the floor. As they fell, Sigrid slammed her fist into the plate of armor covering the man's testicles, at the same time making herself a deadweight and dropping down. He grunted in surprise and released his grip but the knife still scored her neck and the side of her face as she dropped. She moved through the pain, pivoting and drawing her sword as she did, using the whirling momentum to drive the sword _up_, through the space between the bits of his armor. With a strangled noise he fell, and she tugged the blade out, and stabbed him in the neck. Only then did she see that Vilkas, too, had destroyed the bandit's face with his fists and a hastily-grabbed stone from the floor. The boy Velwyn stared at them, bruised and bloody, with huge eyes.

"Let's get you home," Sigrid said.


	11. Solitude

__**AN: **Okay, so I got the link to the tattoo style working in my profile! They are pillars from a stave church, but that's the general shape of things. :) Also I've taken a little liberty with the geography just to make the world seem a little _bigger_ than it is-the village of Snowsbranch is obviously my own invention. And, uh, hopefully everyone enjoys this chapter.

* * *

><p><em>With her sword she gave blood for the bed to drink,<br>With her death-dealing hand, and the hounds she loosed,  
>The thralls she awakened, and a firebrand threw<br>In the door of the hall; so vengeance she had._

—The Poetic Edda, from _Atlakviða_, translated by Henry Adams Bellows

* * *

><p>Velwyn's wide-eyed stare did not waver. "That was <em>wicked<em>!" he exclaimed, practically vibrating with excitement, "Who _are_ you people?" Then he paused and backed away, sudden suspicion gripping hm. He was a small boy, thin and reedy and bruised, olive skin pale from exhaustion. The bandits had taken his shoes so he could not run, and though it looked as though he had been beaten, his skin remained unbroken. "Did my Da send you?"

"We're the Companions," Sigrid said, "Your father hired us to rescue you."

The boy nodded solemnly and then looked up at her in concern. "Your face is _bleeding_."

Sigrid's fingers flew up to the wound and she winced, finding it deeper than she had thought at first. The knife had cut almost down to the bone. In the excitement of battle she never noticed the pain, but now it rebounded in full force. If she had not been used to such things it probably would have made it difficult to concentrate.

"We have some healing potion in my pack," Vilkas said, shifting his weight so that he could reach it, "You should take that."

"No! We still have to get Velwyn safely back to Solitude, and who knows what we'll run into on the road?" Sigrid said. "We need to conserve our resources until this is settled and the boy's reunited with his parents. I have a needle and thread in my pack. Just sew me up and let's have on with it."

"_Wicked!_" Velwyn exclaimed. "Can I watch?"

"If you don't get in the way, boy," Vilkas said to Velwyn, before asking her doubtfully, "Are you sure? That's a nasty wound and these aren't exactly the cleanest surroundings—it'll probably scar if you don't use the potion now. At worst it'll get infected. And I'm not exactly a seamstress."

"I'll buy a potion or see a mage once we get back to Solitude," Sigrid said, throwing back her head to laugh, before she stopped, wincing. The wound was really quite painful and movement made it much worse. "Well, your concern for my pretty face is touching, Vilkas, I didn't know you cared."

He ignored her bantering, having an idea by now that it was generally used to cover her discomfort, one way or another, and moved around behind her to find the needle. "Some women would care about those things."

Velwyn had scampered across the chamber and found a relatively clean cloth, left by one of the bandits, and handed it to Vilkas with an extremely perturbing interest marked on his face. "You're really going to _sew_ it up?"

"My face is chewed up enough already," Sigrid said to her comrade, closing her eyes as Vilkas dabbed the blood away from the wound so that he could see it more easily. "And if you think _that's_ bad, you should see the rest of me."

"Yes, yes, you're a mighty warrior," Vilkas said dryly, cleaning the wound as best he could with the cloth and some water from the canteen. He heated the needle in a candle's flame to clean it, and blew on the edges to cool it down. After a few attempts to thread the needle, he frowned at her face and pinched the edges of the wound together between the fingers of his left hand.

"Ow!" she exclaimed.

"Hold still."

The pain was awful enough on its own, but even more excrutiating for Sigrid was the feeling of the needle puncturing her flesh and the thread pulling through. Whenever she told anyone of her intense dislike of needles they laughed at her; for someone with such a heavily tattooed body, such a fear seemed ludicrous. She had no explanation for it, only that the heated needle involved in decorative ink seemed less painful, somehow, than a point that punctured all of the way. Not that she would ever allow Vilkas to see any weakness in her, so although his rough fingers and the tug of the thread hurt her, she breathed in deeply and did her best to control her reactions, closing her eyes and imagining herself laying on a warm beach in Elsweyr, being served alcoholic drinks by scantily clad and handsome men.

* * *

><p>Vilkas found that against his will he was developing a grudging sort of admiration for her. While he remained suspicious of Sigrid's reliability, even he had to admit that she handled pain like a veteran, bearing it with acceptance and good humor. He didn't know many women, even among the Companions, who would have accepted such a nasty face wound with equanimity. He winced in sympathetic pain as he tugged on the thread to tie it off, hearing her low hiss of agony. It was a necessity, sometimes, to sew up wounds on the field: either the battlemage with healing hands was unavailable, or there were no potions to spare. He bore his own share of scars, and knew that they would be a written book to show when he one day crossed the whale-bone bridge of Sovngarde, a physical manifestation of his valor.<p>

_No_, he thought, and the thought made him surprisingly melancholy for the first time in many years. _You will never see Sovngarde, unless Kodlak finds his cure. Even then, perhaps not_.

"There," he said, cutting the thread with his dagger. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Oh no," she said, her eyes opening to meet his gaze, "I could do that every day for the rest of my life. I just love having my old face held together with thread and spittle."

"That was _wicked_," Velwyn interrupted, distracting them. "Where'd you get those other scars, huh?" the boy demanded.

"I wasn't paying attention as I should have done when hunting with my Da, back when I wasn't much older than you are," Sigrid said, hauling herself to her feet, "And a very friendly cave bear tried to make a handshake hello with my face."

"_Wicked_," the boy breathed. "What happened next?"

"I made him into a coat," Sigrid said, with the sweetest of smiles. "Come on, boy. We've got to find you some shoes so we can get you back to your parents."

They did not find his shoes, which had been discarded somewhere along the road, but they did find a spare pair of bandits' boots. With a little creativity, which mostly included stuffing the toes with rags and tying the boot around the boy's skinny legs, they managed to get him situated so that he did not fall about too often. Worse than his balance, however, he proved to be a rather precious child who peppered them with questions. _Where are you from? What are the Companions? Wow, you _really _killed that bandit, how did you do it? Where did you get that sword_? The two warriors just glanced at each other, bemused. Neither had any experience with children and the energy and enthusiasm of their tiny charge was totally foreign to them. With a little prodding they were finally able to herd him out of Fort Dunstad and into the snow, dressed in warmer, borrowed bandits' clothing that was many sizes too large for him. Even there, drowning in fabric that pooled around his arms and waist, he kept up a constant stream of chatter, demanding to know if they'd killed everyone who'd kidnapped him and how painful it had been and why they hadn't cut him free first because he _certainly_ would have helped.

To hear all of this coming from a floppy-haired child with a hound's huge, sad brown eyes, small and skinny even for his ten winters of age, was more than a little disconcerting. Vilkas had the distinct feeling that Velwyn was desperate for someone, _anyone_, to pay attention to him and felt that he had to get all of it out now, while he had a captive audience. His opinion of the boy's parents dropped, rapidly.

While Velwyn did his best to keep up with them, eventually they ended up carrying him piggyback, switching off whenever he became a burden. It was easier than waiting for him to attempt to navigate the heavy snow around the Fort with the too-large boots. At times he would insist that he be allowed to walk anyway, and then Sigrid and Vilkas would have to slow their pace so that he didn't fall too far behind. Vilkas was determined, however, to make it to Solitude before nightfall. Baby-sitting did not suit him, especially when the boy began to play his favorite game, which was asking embarrassing questions.

"So are you two _married_," he said, as Sigrid allowed him to slide off of her back and Vilkas to pick him up again.

"No," Vilkas said shortly.

"Actually," Sigrid informed Velwyn, with a twinkle in his eye, "I've promised to make an honest man out of him."

"You _did_?" Velwyn said.

"Sigrid has an…interesting idea of humor," Vilkas replied. "No, she didn't."

"You're right, I actually promised to make an honest wo—"

"Wait," Vilkas said, "For one moment. Just wait. Something's wrong." A strange scent had caught his nose on the wind, too far for either Sigrid or the boy to notice, lacking enhanced senses as they did. Unfortunately, it was a scent he recognized all too well: smoke and burning wood and flesh, and _fear_. Velwyn's small hands tightened around his neck, nervous without knowing why.

"What is it?" Sigrid asked.

"Fire," he said. "But what's caused it…"

And then they all heard it: the unearthly, roaring shriek of a dragon.

Sigrid and Vilkas looked at each other and at the same time, he said "No," and she said, "Yes."

"Vilkas, we can't just leave whoever it is to die," she said. "If you'd seen Helgen or the Western Watchtower, you'd know. It's…awful."

"Our _duty_ is to bring Velwyn home, not to drag him into more danger. We can't save everyone!

"But I want to see the danger!" Velwyn protested.

Sigrid said: "Vilkas. If we don't go, the dragon could just as easily find us here."

"I promise I won't get in the way!" Velwyn begged, "_Pleeease_?"

It was not a decision that he wanted to make.

But he made it anyway.

* * *

><p>Sigrid momentarily wished that she had not switched child-carrying duties with Vilkas before they set off down the path again, at a faster clip. Velwyn, though small, was much heavier than the packs, and could not remain still to save his life. Thankfully, he kept quiet for now. As they moved quickly through the snow-covered woods, only the sound of their feet and Velwyn's quiet, ragged breaths could be heard. As they ran closer to the village, she could pick up the scent too, and her stomach sank. It was the scent of Helgen, of human flesh crisped and burning. The rumbling roar sounded in the distance, and they could see the flames rising above the trees. No matter how quickly they moved now, they would most likely be too late. The nearest village, she knew from looking at a map before they'd left, was called Snowsbranch. <em>Was<em> would be the most accurate term now: a small hunting village without walls, all made of wood with little stone to repel a fire.

A clearing opened before them and Sigrid saw that her worst fears had been realized. The village was strewn with burnt and mangled corpses; the dragon had eaten its fill and then thrown the rest around like discarded toys, limbs missing their owners and heads tossed about the square. The homes were piles of smoldering rubble and it was a lucky thing indeed that the wind was not high and the ring of trees around the village was far enough away, else the entire woods might have gone up in flame. The dragon lay curled lazily around one of the ruined buildings, sleeping off a heavy meal. Blood stained the snow, frozen into shining dark mirrors. She swallowed, hard. But she could not afford to think any of the thoughts that ran through her head now, there was no time. Already the dragon's eye began to slip open, the snake-like lids snapping apart as it registered the scent of the living.

"Hide behind this tree," Sigrid whispered to Velwyn as the boy slid from her shoulders, "And _do not_ move from it or I'll kill you myself."

Vilkas already had the pack thrown to the ground and his greatsword out. Their eyes met over the boy's head and and he nodded sharply, and they moved into battle with an orchestrated ease that would have perturbed her, had she not been so intent upon surviving the encounter with Velwyn's life and skin still intact. They flanked the beast, Vilkas taking the left and Sigrid the right. The dragon saw them but too late: Vilkas threw himself out of the way of its firey breath, and Sigrid, with a battle-cry that echoed in the silence of the destruction, leapt atop its leg, stabbing into the soft flesh beneath the joint of its leg. Screaming, it attempted to throw her off, but she clung gamely on, and the monster faltered, unsure of which Companion to attack first. Vilkas' greatsword took chunks of flesh from its scaled chest and neck as it roared its fury, finally managing to throw Sigrid to the ground. She rolled to her feet even as she hit the ground, about to tell him that the dragon's hide seemed to be softer on its belly, but he had already figured it out. _Of course_, she thought, not a little sourly.

He was good; she had to admit that. He fought with a fury that seemed almost unnatural, as though his entire life was focused solely on killing this one dragon, a depth of emotion that seemed out of place in someone who was so ready to ignore the village's destruction in favor of completing an assignment. After the ice wraiths, however, she thought that this depth of rage might simply have been a part of him, and realized this should have disturbed her more than it actually did. Perhaps it was merely the distraction of the hot dragon's blood staining her hands, or the impact of its whipping tail knocking her to the snow. Perhaps it was simply that she recognized something of it in herself, for all she hid it beneath good humor and reckless joy. At this moment, with the smell of charred flesh in her nostrils and the silence of the Snowsbranch villagers, all she wanted was to destroy this monster, destroy it so that not only did it no longer exist, but so that it would never again be able to exist, in this world or the next.

The world narrowed to the Skyforge steel flashing before her eyes, chopping into the dragon's flesh. To the pained bellows of the beast as it flailed, its claws lashing out, its fire dying, the light fading from its eyes. She felt the sword drive deep into its chest, and the dragon's shudder reverberated through her bones.

As she heard the crackle of its flesh and the whisper of wind as its body dissolved, this time she was ready for the invasion of that foreign consciousness into her mind. As she picked herself off of the ground, where the dragon's death theroes had knocked her, she standing, even when the power hit her, swirling around her skin and sinking into it, bringing the last word wall she had seen to the fore of her mind: _YOL_. Now she knew: fire, flame, heat. She could feel it welling up in her throat, burning her windpipe, and swallowed it back, ruthlessly. Now was not the time, not the place. A deep, cooling breath of the frigid wood's air quelled the urge. She had learned, now, as unwelcome as this strange ability might be. She adapted. And that terrified her more than anything.

She met Vilkas' eye, his face scalded with the blood of the dragon, and then looked away. He had an uncomfortably intent look in his eye, and what that meant for her, she did not know.

* * *

><p>As the dragon had died, the howling wind and unearthly glow that had surrounded Sigrid and faded beneath her skin shocked him out of his battle-fury. <em>The Dragonborn—here?<em> He had heard the rumors around Whiterun that the dragon that had attacked the Western Watchtower was slain by the Dragonborn, but the rumors could not seem to agree on whether the dragonslayer was a woman or a man. _Now it makes sense_, he thought, the dry humor biting, _she certainly looks like she could be one._ He didn't know how to feel about this and as he often did when confronted by unfamiliar feelings, he attempted to focus on something else.

He couldn't figure out exactly the emotion in her face; for a moment, after the light of battle had faded from it, it seemed almost as though she might cry. When she looked away from him, she stared for a long moment at the destruction around them, the ruined village and the corpses of its former inhabitants, as though she wanted to memorize every detail of it. Every one of _them_.

"_WICKED!_" an excited voice piped up, as Velwyn, forgotten during the battle, came pelting out from behind the tree which had hidden him. "You _killed it_, that was _amazing_, can I join the Companions, please, huh? Please? I want to kill dragons!" His piping voice practically tripped over itself its excitement. Without any fear whatsoever, he ran straight for the dragon and attempted to pick up one of its bones, and then yelped at the residual heat. He dropped the heavy piece of bone to the ground and sucked on his singed fingers, staring at Vilkas and Sigrid as though they were Shor and Kyne come to life.

"It's not a pretty life, boy," Sigrid said, picking up the dragon's bone and looking at it with uncharacteristic solemnity. "But if you still feel that way in another five years, come to Whiterun." And with that, she slid that bone, a few more bones, and loose remnants of scale into her pack. Some bizarre trophy?

Privately, Vilkas thought that either the boy's parents would forbid it, or they wouldn't even notice. Instead of saying this, he rubbed his sword with snow and a rag to clean the dragon's corrosive blood from it, then wiped his face with his sleeve. "We don't want to stay here long," Vilkas said. "Any kind of—incident—like this tends to draw the bottom feeders, and I don't want to deal with bandits with the boy in tow. And you wounded."

"Please, don't pity me, I'm fine. We're close enough to Solitude," Sigrid replied, "It shouldn't be difficult to make it within the next few hours. We'll alert someone there about the village…there's no time to bury them."

Vilkas gestured for the boy to come over so that he could carry him, and they set off once more. The woman was uncharacteristically quiet, her face set and unreadable, gray eyes distant. Even had their relationship been a more cordial one he did not think he would have felt comfortable asking what thoughts ran behind her eyes. He had seen an expression like that once before, on Jergen's face, shortly before he had driven Arnbjorn from Jorrvaskr, ten long winters ago. Then, Jergen had felt that his lack of action once he realized that Arnbjorn's methods of removing his targets boded ill on a wider scale, and blamed himself for not reacting more quickly, in going to Kodlak with his concerns, or killing the man himself. But how could Sigrid have blamed herself for the destruction of Snowsbranch? There were many things about the woman that did not make sense.

The rest of their journey passed in relative ease. The woods gave way to the marshy plains above Morthal, and from the flat expanse, they could see the walls of Solitude on the horizon. It was surprisingly easy to find a crabbing flat, manned by a grizzled marshman, willing to take them across the water for a few coins and a bear's pelt. Velwyn spent the journey in moody silence, watching the walls sliding closer on the skyline.

"Do I _have_ to go home?" he pleaded, "Can't I come with you instead? I promise I won't be a bother! I know how to use a dagger and everything!"

"Sorry, boy," Vilkas said, and to his surprise, he found that he really did feel sorry for him. He remembered what it was like to be that age: small before his growth spurt, eager to prove himself to a father figure he greatly admired. "Your parents paid us to bring you back, not take you with us."

"They don't even care a bit about me," Velwyn mumbled. "This is the _worst_." And then he fell quiet again. Sigrid, too, remained moodily silent as the crabber chattered brightly about the sights they could have seen along the way, including the fabled ruins of Ustengrav, that round circle of stones in the distance. He tuned all of it out, retreating to that small place of calm within him that grew smaller and smaller as the years went by.

The sun was setting in the distance over Dragonsbridge as they made their way up the road and past the docks, taking Velwyn back to the safety of his home. The child dragged his feet behind them as they went past the guards, who eyed his curious garb and Sigrid's hastily-stitched face with bemused fascination. Solitude always felt strangely regimented to him, the high walls closed-in and the people just a little stuffy. The boy held Sigrid's hand tightly as they walked through the main market area, through the city's winding streets towards the residential neighborhoods, the modest homes giving way to larger stone mansions. Of course Velwyn's family lived in one of these, their ill-gotten money whitewashed and laundered until they could play at being respectable society.

They had guards posted outside of the home, too, not the city guards but burly men hired after the abduction to protect the remaining members of the family. Somewhat cynically Vilkas wondered whether they hadn't given up on Velwyn as a lost cause. As the trio approached the door the bodyguards roused themselves from their torpor, one of them grunting, "Who are you?" as though the original kidnappers would have been stupid enough to walk into the city with the boy themselves.

"The men and women your _employers_ trusted to get their boy back in one piece," Vilkas growled. "Step aside."

The bodyguard scowled at him and for a moment, looked as though he were about to slid from the stoop and attempt to slam his head against the wall. Sigrid's free hand flew to her sword, but the boy surprised both of them by stepping in between the guards and the Companions and lifting his chin imperiously. "They are my rescuers. Take me to my parents _immediately_."

With muttered aspersions at Vilkas' ancestry and Sigrid's looks, the guard stood down, unlocking the door and glaring with his beady black eyes, as if to say: I've got your number, bucko, just you try something. Sigrid caught Vilkas' eye and rolled hers, and together, they followed Velwyn into his home.

It was a tackily decorated affair, done by someone with more money than taste, and a sudden longing for the comforting ease of Jorrvaskr struck him. No sooner had they crossed the threshold, than immediately a steward appeared from the shadows, eyes wide with surprise. "Why, if it isn't young master Velwyn!" he exclaimed.

"I saw a _dragon_!" Velwyn exclaimed, forever irrepressible, and Vilkas grinned—at least he knew the boy wasn't permanently harmed from his ordeal.

"Just you wait here, young master," the steward said, eyeing the ragged mercenaries with suspicion, "I'll go and get your parents."

But he didn't need to: they had already been alerted by the noise, and the mother, a heavily-made up woman, came down the stairs with her hand theatrically to her head. "My darling boy!" she shrilled, "Home safe, at last! I was _so worried!" _And she promptly fell to the ground in a faint. The steward and a housemaid rushed to her side, whereas her husband merely stepped over her body so that he could better examine his son and his son's saviors. The man seemed totally unconcerned by the boy's ragged appearance or Sigrid's facial wounds, merely made sure that the boy was not seriously harmed, and doled out the money they were owed (a considerable amount, several thousand septims).

Before they left to go find sleeping accomodations, Velwyn threw his arms around Sigrid's waist and held on tightly, and Vilkas found himself laughing aloud at her panicked and confused expression. Gingerly, the woman pried the boy away from her one finger at a time, and Vilkas decided to intercede, solely so that they could finally leave. "What I told you still stands, boy. In a few years' time, if you've still the fire in your heart, come to Whiterun."

"I will!" he replied fiercely.

"Then we take our leave," Vilkas said, and nodded sharply to the father. The mother, still in a puddle on the floor, could be heard calling for her medicinal drink as he and Sigrid escaped into the cool night air.

* * *

><p>Sigrid had rarely felt as exhausted as she felt now. Thankfully, it was not much trouble to arrange for a few rooms in the Winking Skeever, the unfortunately named local inn. While Vilkas took care of a few loose business ends on Kodlak's behalf with the Captain of the Guard, Sigrid found that the apothecary's shop was conveniently located next to the inn. She bought one healing potion, and drank it in two gulps: they were foul-tasting things, the liquid thick and viscous, and she hated them. The sudden absence of pain was a relief that she appreciated every time, however: the brief moment of clarity when she realized that her face no longer burned like embers had been sewn beneath the skin. Her fingers came up to the wound, and found a new scar. He had been right, they had not caught it in time to prevent the skin from knitting back together raggedly. But the infection she had felt burning beneath the surface was gone. She also took the opportunity to bathe in the inn's shared bath-room, though she could still smell the stench of death in her nose.<p>

From there, it only made sense to make her way to the inn to drown her sorrows in ale. Images of the Snowsbranch village remained unshakably in her head. When she closed her eyes, she saw a small burnt hand clutching charred skirts; she could hear the dragon's scream. The first rule she had learned when she joined her very first mercenary company was: _don't be a hero_. Heroes died. Heroes got themselves and their comrades killed. Much better never to stick your neck out unless there was coin involved. Her father, though he had been a fighter himself, would have been ashamed of how she had acted now. His time in the Great War, fighting for the Imperials, had left him with a sense of duty and obligation. _He_ would have accepted this…this power thrust upon him without trying to run from it.

And she could not lie to herself, she _had_ tried to run from it. Why else had she been ignoring the Greybeards' request to recover the horn of their founder? Why had she joined the Companions, as if by doing so she could ignore the dragons? Ignore the magic of the walls that called to her, the grip of their souls as she slew them? Innocent villagers had died because she had done nothing. As she drank, Sigrid argued with herself: _it's not your problem_, the mercenary side of her head whispered, _you've never stayed to clean up a mess after it wasn't your job_. The other side said, _this is bigger than you could have ever imagined, and if it's _you_ that's got to stop it, well…_ Most of all, she could not escape the fact that, for one of the first times in her life, she felt _guilty_ for not doing something stupid—for not pursuing this "hero" business. _Sigrid, what is _happening _to you?_ But she had made up her mind: she knew now what must be done.

* * *

><p>By the time Vilkas found her again, she was well and truly foxed, and still drinking. To his credit, he said nothing to her about it, merely sat down beside her and drank right along with her. She could tell that he <em>wanted<em> to say something to her, whether about the glow of the dragon's soul sinking beneath her skin, or about the village and the tears she had felt prickling beneath her eyelids. Eventually she felt that she should probably say something to _him_, but all that came out was an alcohol-twisted, "This is _shit_."

"Could be worse," he reasoned.

"_How_?"

"Could be dead?"

"That's true," she said, scowling into her ale. Time passed, mostly in silence, for which she was thankful. She found herself rising dizzily from the chair and dragging him with her, only partially for support. If she didn't know better she would have said that _he_ was quite drunk as well, though he hadn't been drinking as long as she had. Or perhaps he was. They certainly seemed to be having some issues with the stairs, though that was mainly because her feet refused to cooperate, and he took the overly-careful steps of someone compensating for sudden clumsiness. "If you drop me, I'm going to _kill_ you," she told him.

"I'm not going to drop you," he said dryly, "And if you try, I'll kill _you_."

"All right. Just so's we're clear," Sigrid said, glaring at him in the shadows of the hall outside of their set of rooms. As she glared at him, she realized that he had rather lovely eyes under all of that scowling and warpaint: surprisingly light, especially underneath a forehead creased by frown lines. _Sigrid, you're an idiot_, was her last coherent thought before she did something that surprised both of them, which was grabbing him by the hair and tugging his head forward to hers. Briefly she wondered what it would be like to kiss him, and then she found out: it was rather like brawling with him, furious and strangely violent. Her stomach twisted, and she made her decision then: she had made worse, over the years, and she'd never once regretted it.

One moment, he was drunkenly helping his equally drunken comrade up the stairs and praying to Talos that his own feet wouldn't fail him and the next, she had attacked him with her mouth and somehow, _somehow_, he was responding? For the moment he had forgotten her scarred face (newly mended, but still scarred) and the fact that he despised her and thought her unwomanly, forgotten because her mouth was surprisingly soft and she kissed him like he was the only thing on her mind. His body seemed to be moving without his conscious decision: one hand behind her head, fingers twisting into the short-cropped hair, the other dropping down her unarmored-back, experimentally grabbing her arse before she had him shoved against the door and he managed to break away long enough to gasp, "Hey—ah—maybe not—here?"

"Yes," she said, and somehow, they fell through the door and into the bed, and she was kissing him again and briefly, he wondered whether his life had always made this little sense. There was no time to think that perhaps he shouldn't do this, that he wasn't even _interested_ in her this way, for her hands slid under his breeches and suddenly he was interested, very interested. She had wriggled out of her shirt and was saying, "Unwrap me."

"Unwrap you?" he asked.

Impatiently she raised her arms and he saw that she had wound a long roll of cloth around her breasts, binding them tightly against her body, more severely than normal smallclothes would have done. He would have admired the practicality had she not been making impatient noises in her throat, hands and mouth encouraging him along. And now he had the answer to the earlier question: the tattoos continued over her entire body, some old, some new, the blue ink bright against the white skin. The same with the scars. Had he had more time he could have catalogued them, a history of her life cut into her body with old and faded lines of scar tissue. He only had time to briefly admire the complicated machinery of her, the disturbingly competent hands and that broad, full-lipped mouth that suddenly held a filthy promise.

And then he decided that perhaps this was not the time for thinking, or for analyzing, and he gave in to the wolf side of him that lurked even when he was a man.

In the morning, she was gone.


	12. Leavetakings

_A guest must depart again on his way,  
>nor stay in the same place ever;<br>if he bide too long on another's bench  
>the loved one soon becomes loathed.<em>

—From the Poetic Edda, _Hávamál_, translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>Sigrid woke well before dawn, eyes snapping open suddenly in the dark. It took her a moment to realize that she was still a bit drunk, and then a number of other facts assaulted her one after another, namely that she was naked and she was not alone in the bed. A hairy, heavy arm and leg covered half of her body, hand gripping her side, weighing her down as she squirmed experimentally to see whether he would wake. Thank Talos he did not, a combination of drink and sheer exhaustion rendering him senseless to the rest of the world. And so she slid from the bed, stumbling around the room in the dark as she searched for her clothes. She had done this a number of times over the years, the evening indiscretion and the early morning flight. Not that she regretted any of it. <em>Especially when it was as good as that<em>, she thought with a pleasant flush of warmth at the memory. But some men rather tediously wanted to examine _feelings_ and discuss relationships and she had just never had the stomach or the time for it. And occasionally she just had somewhere more pressing to be and it was so much easier to leave without a word.

In this case, she mostly did not know how he would even react. She bedded him because she had felt so weighed down by death, because she needed to replace the images of ruin behind her eyes with something charged with life. And she had. Ah, she had.

As she re-bound her breasts and wriggled her way back into her breeches and shirt and armor, she knew she had to leave because she if she did not, Vilkas would insist on accompanying her to Ustengrav—whether it would be to make sure she didn't run off now that she had been admitted to his precious Companions, or out of some misguided sense of obligation to a shield-sibling she didn't know, but neither was what she needed right now. This was something she had to do alone. She looked at him once before she left, thinking how strange it was that the grim face, relaxed in sleep, was still the face of a stranger. She had fought him, against him and with him, and he had been inside of her. And she knew him not a whit more.

The publican of the Winking Skeever looked up when he heard footsteps on the stairs, smirking at her as she went by. She knew how she must look: thoroughly debauched, bruises on her neck and hair in wild disarray, sneaking out of an inn in the middle of the night, still stumbling. She scowled at him and left with her head high, for she slunk shamefully before no man, let alone one with poor enough judgment to name his livelihood after a skeever, of all things.

The moment she stepped outside the chilly night air shocked her momentarily sober. "I needed that," Sigrid said to the empty street, and even she was unsure whether she meant fucking him or the sobering effect of the cold. The street did not reply.

She stood facing the great gate of Solitude for what seemed a long time, aware that by leaving the city alone, she would be setting in motion something she wasn't sure if she could stop. But it was something she had to do. The torn limbs in the snow in a forest clearing flashed across her vision, and she took a deep breath and stepped through the gates, ignoring the guard's curious stare. She could imagine Saemund, the leader of the first mercenary group that would take a fourteen-year-old girl lying about her age, staring at her in utter horror. _But why,_ he would have demanded, _what's in it for _you?

But as she walked resolutely down the road from Solitude, she thought that, somewhere in Sovngarde, her father might be smiling.

She remembered, roughly, the circle of stones in the broad marshy plains that the crabber had pointed out. Unencumbered now by a child, she took a deep breath and simply dove into the river, the icy shock driving the remaining alcohol straight from her brain. The length itself was not long; she had made far worse journeys in the past, under worse conditions. But nevertheless she felt an incredible surge of relief when she could feel the ground beneath her feet again. Sigrid had always felt far more comfortable on solid earth, when she knew where she stood, and did not have to imagine a bottomless depth yawning below her. In truth, the black of the abyss was the only thing that truly frightened her, but she forced herself across water when necessary anyway, for she was not the sort of woman who allowed her fears to rule her. But that did not mean she didn't shudder a bit as she pulled herself from the river and shook off like a wet dog.

As she loped across the marshes, feet squelching in the wet grass and the cold prickling her wet skin, her treacherous brain kept finding reasons why this idea was totally insane. _Heroes got themselves killed in stupid ways—what was the use of going to Sovngarde before her time, without compensation? What was the use of delving into some dank tomb without even having seen the sun rise before what might very well be her last day on Nirn?_ And worst of all: _there must be some mistake. You're a good fighter, to be sure, but you're no hero. Shouldn't heroes enjoy fighting just a _little _less?_ Have a few more…principles? Shouldn't she have had some more noble ambition besides wanting to clear a land of dragons so that she could settle down in a little cottage in Whiterun and only worry about a human variety of villain, the predictable kind of evil that didn't raze harmless villages to the ground just for the fun of it? _A hero_, she thought, hearing the words in Vilkas' gravely voice even though he did not know of this incident, _would never cut off a man's bollocks and feed them to him after. That's just not something a bloody hero _does_._ In her defense, the man had more than deserved it, and had she been hired to kill him by his victim she'd do it exactly the same way again. Now, stalking through the dark, she remembered the look on his face as tears mixed with the mucous running from his nose, begging her for mercy. In the memory she whispered, _did you show any mercy to Mette? _and forced his lips closed around his foul meal. The imaginary Vilkas sneered in disgust at her savagery.

A lone mudcrab took that moment to nip at her heels, chittering angrily. "This is _not_ the time," she snapped, and promptly brought down her booted heel on its head, feeling the satisfying crack as its shell gave way with a squeak of escaping air. "Would _anyone else like to have a say?_" she demanded of the empty marsh. Nothing answered her. "Good," she growled, and stalked off towards the ruins in the distance, occasionally splashing through shallow streams in the marsh. She almost hoped that there would be something to stop her, someone to kill. At least she'd be able to get this hero business off to a proper start.

As she approached the depression in the ground of the ruins, carefully circling it from a further distance, crouched low to the grass, she found that a small camp had been set up outside the depression of Ustengrav. Two scruffy looking men in battered leather armor sat around a fire, disconsolately poking at some charred salmon hanging from the spit.

"You ruined it again, Bergur," one of them complained, "Next time let _me_ cook the fish."

"It's fine," Bergur replied, "You're gods-curst picky when it comes to food for a soldier."

"It's just when you cook it too fast it gets that white shit…"

For a moment, Sigrid thought that perhaps she had merely stumbled into a hunter's encampment, and perhaps she wouldn't have to fight her way into the ruins, and felt a strange stab of disappointment. This promptly vanished when a bolt of magic shattered next to her with the high, clear crack of breaking glass, and the mage she hadn't seen growled, "Back off or I'll kill you!"

"I was hoping you'd say that," Sigrid replied, surging to her feet as Bergur and his fish-loving friend scrambled up from their fireside, grabbing for their weapons.

Bergur howled in pain as the mage, overenthusiastically attempting to murder Sigrid with bolts of cold lightning, accidentally struck him instead. "Thanks!" she replied.

"Fuck you, whore!" the mage growled.

"Now that's not very nice," Sigrid said, whirling to meet Bergur and his friend's blades at the same time, letting the friend's sword glance off her shield as she parried the other blow with the Skyforge blade, herding her two opponents around so that she could keep them in front of the mage, who was cursing again, this time in frustration, all manner of insults about her apperance and exactly what he was going to do with her body after he killed her. "Well… that's creative, I suppose," Sigrid said.

"Stop _talking_," Bergur complained, as he attempted to rush behind her. She whirled to respond and brought the sword up in a vicious slash that sliced through throat and bone, a spurt of arterial spray as he gasped through his gaping windpipe, and collapsed to the ground.

"No!" his friend shouted, and redoubled his attack, even as the mage had managed to get around to her unprotected sword arm, forcing her to throw herself to the ground as he fired another bolt of lightning at her head, singing her arm. Now that she had him on her other side it was easier to block the bolts with the shield, though the impact jolted lances of pain up her arm as she swung the sword around to parry again.

And as she did, the word that had been tickling around the back of her skull since slaying the Snowsbranch dragon suddenly became irresistible. This time, she could not have prevented its emergence had she tried, all she could do was dart to the side so that she had the mage and Bergur's friend lined up neatly in front of her. And then the heat of the word burst from her throat in a roar of flame, burning her skin without leaving a trace. It exploded from her lips. "_YOL!_"

A stream of fire lit both men ablaze and as they ran, panicked and screaming, she finished them off. Two quick movements: caving the mage's skull in with the edge of her shield and cutting down the remaining bandit. The corpses smoldered on the ground now, all blood and charred flesh, and she bit back a rising gorge. If she ever made it back to High Hrothgar to speak with the Greybeards, she would have a word with them about this. For all that she was destined to slay dragons—how much of her soul _was_ draconian? What would that mean for her in the future? Would she lose herself in the thrill of power that she felt threaded beneath the nausea, that whispering alien voice that delighted in the deaths of her enemies by fire and flame? Sigrid took a deep breath before she went down the stairs to the depths of Ustengrav, and ran a finger over the faintly raised blue ink that decorated the backs of her hands.

_I am still myself_, she thought.

And she opened the door.

* * *

><p>Vilkas woke gradually as the morning sun streamed in through the window at exactly the wrong angle to sear his eyelids. With a groan of disgust, he rolled over and away and found that the bed belonged to him alone. Normally this would not have thrown him, except the room still reeked of sex and of <em>her<em>… He sat up abruptly in the bed, the still-damp sheets tangled around his legs, and then the memory of the previous evening's end came rushing back all at once, and he fell back against the pillow with another groan, this time of dismay. _What a stupid fucking idea_, he thought to himself, fucking a woman he wasn't even attracted to, a woman he didn't even _like_ very much. Didn't even trust. Oh, she might know her way around a sword… and apparently around other things as well… but that meant nothing. Any common sellsword, any common whore, knew the same. That did not mean he wanted either one at his side or in his bed.

At first he thought that perhaps she might have decamped to the baths, but she did not strike him as the type given to maidenly modesty. _Not after the way she…_ No, behind that path only lay uncomfortable questions to which he did not have the answers. Instead, he dressed hastily, and checked to see whether she had returned to her own room—she had not. It seemed as though the newest Companion was missing. She had left in her wake his ripped shirt, a number of broken dishes knocked from the table, a bruise on his collarbone, and deep scratches on his back. In addition to the headache lurking behind his eyelids, Vilkas' mood rapidly descended towards "foul." Strangely, he most dreaded returning to Kodlak and telling the old man that he had been right about the new recruit, and Kodlak wrong. He had not been able to ignore the hope practically vibrating from the Harbinger when Sigrid had taken the oath, for whatever mysterious reasons. He didn't want to disappoint him, even when the one doing the disappointing was someone else all together. Instead of thinking about it further, he gathered his things rather more roughly than he would have otherwise, and stalked down the stairs.

She was not in the common room, either.

"Woman come through here?" he asked Vinius, behind the bar polishing some glasses.

The man whistled, a leer on his face. "That bad, eh?" Vilkas fixed him with a level, wordless glare, which apparently did the trick. "Touchy, touchy," the publican grumbled. "She was the same way, aye. Came sneaking through here around four in the morning, must have been. Looked half-drunk still for all she was dressed for battle." He whistled, the little grin tilting the corner of his mouth again, a slow, appraising glance up and down. "Must've been _quite_ a night."

Instead of replying, Vilkas merely made a rude gesture and stalked out into the light.

There were a few strands of business left to take care of before he left Solitude: a woman wanted to hire the Companions to intimidate her husband into leaving her, another old customer wished to see whether or not they would consider guarding his son on a long journey to meet his bride-to-be in Windhelm. All of this was concluded easily enough, and he promised to write the elderly man once he spoke with the Harbinger about it: it would require more hands, perhaps, than they had available, especially with the recent resurgence of the Silver Hand… He resolved that once he returned to Jorrvaskr, that he would force the knowledge of Skjor's Silver Hand contact from him. Despite the business contacts, he still felt strangely out of sorts, furious but without an outlet for his fury. As he left Solitude he resolved that he would not look for her, though he knew that Farkas would probably give him hell for it later.

His journey home did not oblige him by offering excuses to kill anything. Instead, he found all of the beauty of Skyrim spread before him, almost mockingly. Delicate blue butterflies twisted in the air before him as he took the road from Solitude, birdsong in the distance, an ideal morning. Had he not promised Kodlak that he would not transform again, he would have done it in a heartbeat. Imagining the countryside flying by, all of its secrets stripped bare, was almost painful. Would he ever escape that longing? Missing that part of himself? And would it even matter, if he still gave in to the wolf side without changing his form, the fury and the passion?

Even without the ability to run as a wolf, Vilkas, traveling light and without the encumbrance of a child, found that he was able to make the journey in half the time, even without stopping for sleep. He found a certain savage joy in pushing himself to his absolute limit, forcing himself into a run whenever he felt too complacent in his pace. By the time he dragged himself into Whiterun he was almost exhausted enough to forget that he would have to explain his solitude. Kodlak would probably be sleeping, at the very least, but Farkas would find him.

Reports could wait. He snuck through the Jorrvaskr halls, quiet as anything. Gentle snores from Skjor's room and a sleep murmur told him Aela was otherwise occupied; as for Farkas, he already knew his twin was sleeping the sleep of the dead, as he always did. The others were either gone on travel, or asleep as well. As he walked through the silent halls of his home, he felt the calm of the return descend on his shoulders. Whatever happened, with the beast-blood or the new-blood, he would weather it.

As he had done before, and as he would do again.

* * *

><p>In the depths of Ustengrav, Sigrid fought draugr. She had easily dispatched the ragged group of mages and bandits that had penetrated the first level of the tomb, with a sigh. It seemed almost as though the treasure hunters of Skyrim had a sixth sense that told them when she would be coming so that they could make things difficult for her. And now, further into the crumbling tomb, she faced the undead once more. Although she knew that their dry flesh burnt easily, having tested it with a torch in Dustman's Cairn, she could not bring herself to breathe that word at them again, to feel the desire that welled up with the flame. Instead she dispatched them quickly, mercilessly. By now the undead opponents could be dealt with almost mechanically, especially if they woke up one at a time. She had started aiming for the head, especially the face: that seemed to "kill" them with the most efficiency. The total lack of emotion she felt fighting them now was a comfort, after the fire-breath: she clung to it, focused upon it. She was not fighting a foe—she was simply removing obstacles.<p>

Eventually she made her way down to the lower level of the tombs, and after killing another wight, found that the tunnel opened up into a huge, gaping cavern. She paused there, stunned by the unearthly beauty of it, the sun streaming down through the cracks in the cave's roof. Giant pine trees yearned towards that light, tilted as though leaning into it. In the distance of the space she could hear the rushing water of a cataract, and as she turned to see its origin, an arrow flew through the air and caught her in the arm, between her gauntlets and the edge of her steel armor, the impact punching through her skin in a sudden sharp blossom of pain. "Shit!" she growled, and ducked behind a pillar to check the wound. The arrow was black, with a ragged feather fletch and a barbed arrowhead, and when she pulled it from her skin, she couldn't suppress a hiss and another curse. There was no time to tend the wound and so she merely pulled a ragged strip of cloth from her pack and tied it tightly around the puncture. It would have to do for now.

She moved more carefully down the bridge now, keeping an ear out for the whistling arrows of the skeletons, and grinned when a well-placed swing of her shield sent the bones clattering down to the bottom of the cavern, where they shattered to pieces on the rock, bow broken. Arm throbbing still, Sigrid strode down the bridge, sweeping the skeletons from it as they went, their bony feet offering no purchase on the stone. "You're not worth dulling my blade," she told one of them, before sending it flying.

Sigrid stood now at the bowl of the cavern, staring up at the glimpse of sky above her. The sheer size of it awed her, and for a moment she forgot all about destiny and horns and the Greybeards and simply wondered at the vastness of the world. And then her concentration shattered with the now familiar chanting in the distance, and she groaned. This time, however, Sigrid steeled herself. It did not seem as though she could avoid these walls—they appeared wherever she turned, it seemed. Instead of fighting the pull of the dragon-magic, Sigrid went to it, running her fingers over the carving as the threads of ancient knowledge reached for her. This Word felt more tentative than _fus_ or _yol_, almost a caress as the feel of it sank into her skull. She did not understand it, but she had the sense that this was not a word of destruction, and the moment of sheer relief that she felt with that knowledge almost felled her. It might be magic, but at least it was not magic of the sort that had left Snowsbranch in ruins.

Moving through the cavern, almost regretful to leave it, Sigrid found on a ledge in which three pillars stood in a row. She could feel the stink of magic on them, and her suspicions were realized as she walked past them and the set of three gates ahead began opening, then closing, as she passed each pillar. Instantly she thought of the Greybeards' courtyard and the feeling of flying through the snow as the Word propelled her feet fleet as a spirit's. Though she was loath to rely so much on the Words, she knew there was no way to get past these gates without it—even if she _ran_ from the time she got to the first pillar, there was no way to clear all three gates, and she did not want to get stuck between them, and die wasting away in this tomb.

It was a gamble, either way. She started running for the first pillar and, as she cleared it, felt the power of the Word vibrating through her. "_WULD!"_ she shouted, and then she was flying, thrown forward into the series of gates, slowing in the middle of the second, pushing herself into a normal run and then throwing herself to the ground and rolling under the spikes of the gate, she managed to get through to the other side. She lay there on the floor, panting and staring at the wicked metal grate. A little too close for comfort.

Cautiously, she inched up the corridor stairs and saw in the shadows a dessicated corpse, sucked dry of all juice and life. Cobwebs, disintegrating, bound it to the floor. Sigrid swore—if it wasn't the living dead, it was spiders, of course—and readied her sword again. At the top of the corridor she found a room with a round bowl of burning embers atop a stone table, and the floor appeared to be made of alternating light and dark stones, slotted together with care. Sharp eyes caught small, but visible spigots at the corners of each of the plates. A trap of some sort? Gingerly she stepped out onto the plates, testing each. First the light color—she could hear shifting of gears, but nothing happened. The instant she stepped on the dark plate with one toe, fire shot up into the air and she backpedaled, careful not to step off of the first. And she laughed, for it reminded her of nothing so much as the game she used to play as a girl, where she could only step in certain spots of their little cottage, and any spot outside of that was hot lava that would burn her up. Of course she should have known that somewhere such a thing actually existed.

"Well," she said to herself, in the gloom of the tomb, "I suppose I might as well enjoy it, hmm." And so she hopped from plate to plate, ridiculously, until she found herself on solid ground and surrounded by spiders. "Rude!" she said to one of the smaller arachnids, as it spat corrosive poison at her armor, "Interrupting a woman's game in such a manner." It went down easily, sword trough its head, and she stepped on its hairy body to free her blade as two other spiders rushed her—she stunned one with a slam of her shield as she kicked the other in its eight beady little eyes, and then stabbed it when it scrabbled for her. With a sense of foreboding she went to the only available exit, which was covered in a thick web. Memories of Bleak Falls Barrow gave her a sense of what might be waiting behind it, but she slashed through it gamely anyway.

To her surprise, she found only a wooden door, a small corridor, and a gate ahead. She pulled the chain to open it, still expecting an attack to come from any side, but nothing happened. Gingerly Sigrid inched through the door and found a broad stone bridge that lead to a throne room, with murky dark water on each side. As she stepped forward, with a hiss of spraying water and the grinding of stone upon stone, huge claws rose from the water and Sigrid jumped, yelping, "Holy _shit_" as she did so. And still, nothing attacked. "I have a bad feeling about this…" she murmured, but as she went across the bridge, nothing happened. She approached the altar, where she supposed that the horn should be and found…

Nothing.

In the pride of place where an artefact had obviously sat, only a small, folded note remained. With a sigh, Sigrid unfolded it and muttered, "Nothing is ever fucking easy, is it?" and read:

_Dragonborn,  
>I need to speak to you. Urgently.<br>Rent the attic room at the Sleeping Giant Inn in Riverwood, and I'll meet you._  
>—<em>A friend<em>

"Some friend," Sigrid muttered to herself, "Went to all the trouble of stealing the horn and couldn't even bother to kill the draugr for me? With friends like that…"

She sighed, and began to look for an exit behind the throne. No point in remaining underground any longer than she had to. This hero business was turning out to be rather dirty and thankless so far—at least being a mercenary paid well for the dirt.

"Sigrid, you're an idiot," she said, folding the note up and sliding it into her pocket.

* * *

><p>Cold water slapped him in the face, startling him awake. Spluttering, he lunged from the bed in an automatic response, ready to defend himself from the attack. In his small bedchamber, there was not much room for movement and instead, he found that he had run into Farkas, who as usual was an unmoving rock. His brother took him by the shoulders and held him at arms' length, looking at him solemnly. "Hello, brother," he said pleasantly, "You slept rather late so I wanted to make sure you were still alive."<p>

"Of course I'm still alive, you idiot!" Vilkas said, still coughing. "What the hell was that for?"

"As I said," Farkas replied, "Just checking."

He pulled himself out of his brother's grasp and avoided his gaze, which had taken in the fading scratches and bruises. "Did you get into a fight with a cat?" Farkas asked.

"What?"

"Your back's all scratched up, and I know it couldn't've happened when you were rescuing the boy, because you'd be in armor. So I thought it must've happened after, maybe if a stray cat got into your room."

No matter how Vilkas glared at him, he could not tell whether or not Farkas was joking, or being his usual obtuse self. "Yes, a cat."

His brother smiled pleasantly and threw him a shirt. As Vilkas dressed, Farkas filled him in on what had transpired in his absence, which turned out to be quite a bit. "Skjor was yelling at Kodlak yesterday," he said, "About the cures and transformations. He's not happy about it at all and said that even if Kodlak figures it out in the end, he won't do it."

"Expected as much," Vilkas said, frowning. Skjor had always taken to the blood more than any of them, except Aela perhaps, and if giving up the transformations was this hard for _him_, he could only imagine what it must be like for Skjor.

"Yes," Farkas said, and leaned back in the chair so that it tipped on its edges. "And he said if it were up to him, he _would_ go to the Hunting Grounds."

"Where does Aela stand on this?" he asked. Though she and Skjor had an understanding of sorts, the Huntress was fiercely independent.

"She would, too," Farkas said, and a troubled expression rippled across his face. When he was upset he also looked confused, as though unsure of exactly what troubled him. "I don't like it. We're the Companions, right? We shouldn't be split up like that. We should all go to Sovngarde, or not."

Vilkas could think of nothing to say to that, and instead he coughed uncomfortably and went to check whether his armor needed polishing after the beating he'd put it through over the last few days—of course it did. The repetitive motion of wiping it carefully with a cloth, then rubbing in the wax, gave him something to concentrate upon without having to look at Farkas, who was eyeing him with the disconcertingly intent expression that signaled that he'd gotten an _idea_ into his head.

"You know," he said, "I haven't seen Sigrid around Jorrvaskr today."

"No," Vilkas grunted.

"Where is she?"

"Why in Oblivion should I know?"

"Well, you were the last person she was traveling with," Farkas pointed out reasonably.

"She buggered off the night we dropped the boy off with his parents," Vilkas said, wondering whether it was possible to polish a hole in the armor. "I don't know where the hell she went. Bloody unreliable woman, and of course I'm going to be the one to have to break the news to Kodlak that his precious recruit took the money and ran."

"Hmmm," said Farkas, still watching Vilkas with that infuriatingly bland expression on his face, a hand going up to scratch his head. "You sure that's all that happened?"

"_Yes_," said Vilkas.

"All right," Farkas said, and lurched to his feet in a rumble of armor and muscle, "Well, I'll be out on the training grounds. Come join me when you're done." And he hummed a few lines of a jaunty tune that had recently been making the rounds in Whiterun as he left, "_You'll know, you'll know the Dragonborn's come_—are you all right, brother? You're looking rather pale."

Chasing a number of different connotations of that line from his thoughts, Vilkas wondered, not for the last time, whether there was a time when his life made _any_ sense at all.


	13. Dovahkiin

_The sea shall rise in storms to heaven  
>It shall sweep o'er the land and the skies shall yield<br>In showers of snow and biting blasts  
>At the Doom of the Powers, the gods of war.<br>There shall come hereafter another mightier  
>Whose name I dare not now make known…<em>

—The Poetic Edda, from _Völuspá_, translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>Before he went out to fight with his brother, Vilkas walked down the long hall, deserted now that the Companions were either training or on missions, to Kodlak's quarters. The old man sat at his desk, writing in a journal. While this normally would have surprised Vilkas, for Kodlak was not the sort to set his thoughts to paper, preferring to keep his own counsel, he had reached a point where very few things could have shocked him anymore. "Harbinger," he greeted the old man and sat down across the table from him, the same way they had sat the day that the Dragonborn came stalking through the halls of Jorrvaskr and everything went to hell.<p>

"Vilkas," he replied, and closed the book with a snap. "I trust the rescue of the young Lucilius went without issue?"

"The boy is safe with his parents," Vilkas said, and hesitated.

"There is more that you wish to tell me," Kodlak said, voice wryly amused.

"Your new recruit is gone."

"Gone?" Kodlak asked, eyebrows raised, "Surely not…?"

"As far as I know, no, she hasn't died," Vilkas said. "She vanished the night after we returned the boy, with the share of the money I gave her for her work. I looked for her in the morning, but she was no longer in Solitude. The innkeeper saw her leaving around four o'clock in the morning. I know you had hopes for her, Harbinger, but that woman is not—Companions material."

"Time will tell, my boy."

"Harbinger, I think time has told," Vilkas said. "How can we trust her to fight at our backs if she disappears into the night, without a word?"

Kodlak sighed and tugged his beard absently. "I forget how young you and Farkas are, sometimes, and how strongly Jorrvaskr has shaped you…"

"What do you mean?"

"This is the center of your world," Kodlak said, "My boy, it's all you've ever known. We're all you've ever known. Of course you would return."

"And she wouldn't—"

Kodlak held up his hand. "She wouldn't, no. That kind of fighter… they're used to movement, to seeing the world. Not having anyone relying on them, or at the very least, not being able to rely on anyone. But I see… I have… confidence in her future here."

"I don't," Vilkas said. He hated to be blunt with the old man, but perhaps the rot had advanced further than he thought…

"Vilkas," Kodlak said sharply. "You must be patient. Yes, Jorrvaskr is the center of your world. But you must understand that for one who has not grown with us, returned to us for so many years, who has been rootless for so long—it takes time to trust, to form that bond. Has Skjor ever told you of how he came to join the Companions?"

"I know only that he was injured in the charge that the two of you led against the Aldmeri force," Vilkas said. "And afterward, you brought him back with you to Jorrvaskr."

"This is all true, but it is only the middle of his story. Originally he trained as a Blade, and was still a Blade when I met him and we embarked on that bit of madness…"

Skjor had never spoken of his life before the Companions, even when Vilkas had been a boy growing up, begging for tales of heroism from the men and women who had become his replacement parents. He remembered: Skjor had looked down from what then seemed like a great height, and said, "It's not a tale to help you sleep at night." Vilkas had never asked him again, going instead to Kodlak and Jergen for his hero's tales. He waited now for the answers, the history of a man he'd known for years and yet, had never really known.

"It was suicide, pure and simple, and to this day I don't know what possessed us. Rage and despair, I suppose… We took on tens of thousands of Thalmor soldiers by ourselves, I as a wolf, Skjor as a man. We took so many lives that day… I remember slipping into piles of the corpses of our foes, the stench of death so strong that ravens from across the land flew to feast. He was wounded, severely, in the battle," Kodlak went on, a distant look in his eye. Though in the room, physically with Vilkas, his mind had gone off elsewhere, to the battles of the past when he was still a young man, hardy and strong. Before the rot had set in. Before he had become obsessed with finding a cure for his soul, a cure for them all. Vilkas felt an unexpected surge of pity and ruthlessly pushed it down. Kodlak would not have wanted such an emotion, and would soon pick up on it with his keen sense of smell if he did not temper it. Kodlak went on. "He would have died, but I hauled him from the field myself and brought him back to Jorrvaskr to recover. Even after his body healed, his mind was still scarred from what he had undergone: losing his friends in the Blades as the Thalmor hunted them down, and now being confined to one small area, when he'd been used to roaming the world…" Kodlak sighed again. "He'd vanish for weeks on end, returning only when injured. He was like a wild thing shying from every kind hand, attacking every offer of assistance. Even when he returned, he was…vicious. But I could not judge him for it. It's a hard adjustment, to go from a life of wide-roaming adventure, of being unable to rely on your comrades in arms any longer because they might be killed before your eyes… Nothing changed for him until we took him into the Circle, and I became his forebear, and as much as I now regret having continued the cycle of the beastblood, it seemed to make him whole again. It grounded him here. And he truly became one of the Companions, in blood and heart as well as in name."

"Harbinger, it's hardly the same—" Vilkas started.

"Sigrid is not another Skjor, no," Kodlak said, "Thank Ysgramor! But my point, Vilkas, is this: with these types of warriors, it takes time, and patience. Time for them to learn to trust, and to find a reason to want to stay. I have no doubt that she will find her reason—in time."

"As you say, Harbinger," Vilkas said, though privately he doubted that they would ever see her again. And if they didn't, that was perfectly acceptable as well.

"Is that all you came to discuss?" Kodlak asked.

"No…" Vilkas said, "Farkas told me about the argument you had with Skjor."

"I knew he would not be happy about the search for a cure. He will come around eventually."

"Your pardon, Harbinger, but I can't—I can't see it happening," Vilkas said, with growing concern. Kodlak had always been inclined to assume the best of people despite many years killing them on the field of battle, but he wondered now if the rot and Kodlak's age wasn't affecting his judgment. Anyone could look at Skjor and see the wolf barely contained beneath his skin. Sense the savage joy he took in the hunt, in bringing down his prey. No: the rest of the Circle might be wolves and men, but Skjor was all wolf now, no matter which skin he wore. To think that he would give up his very self went beyond wishful thinking.

"You are doubtful," Kodlak replied. "I have lived a life of doubts, my boy, but these last few months… I have faith that our troubles will work themselves out." He looked up then, the direct gaze still holding the power of his youth, "I need you, Vilkas, to remain steady. I do not think I will live much longer… and I've always known that you would be integral to the future of the Companions. I need you now more than ever. Things are changing so quickly…"

"You know I am ever at your command," Vilkas replied stoutly. No matter what happened. No matter what dangers they faced.

That drew a smile from the old man. "Your heart's fire was never in doubt, only your faith. Go now, Vilkas. And think on what I have said, about patience."

"Yes, Harbinger."

* * *

><p>On the training grounds, Farkas stood below the arch of the Jorrvaskr awning, talking to Torvar.<p>

"But it's not as though I called her a bitch on purpose," Torvar was saying as he laid a damp cloth on his rapidly darkening eye, which would turn into a nasty-looking bruise in a few hours. "She just _provoked_ it out of me. Calling me a filthy good for nothing drunk no good reason!"

"You _are _a filthy good for nothing drunk, and you should know better then to rise to Njada's bait," Farkas said, hiding a grin. "You know she's only ever looking for an excuse to black your eyes."

"As if she needed an excuse," Torvar muttered darkly. "She'd do it whether I gave her one or not."

"That's our Njada," Farkas said, with a fond smile, before he noticed Vilkas approaching. "Hello, brother. Talked to Kodlak about your concerns?"

"Yes," Vilkas said. "And as usual, he answered them without really _answering_ them."

"That's our Kodlak," Farkas said, proudly. "Get your sword, brother, I've had enough standing around for one day."

Their practice fighting this time lacked the fury that he had possessed only a few weeks earlier. He found it strangely calming: as he circled Farkas, concentrating on watching the quick movements of his muscles as he swung the sword to attack, the clash of steel reverberating through his arms. Familiar. While he trained with the other Companions on occasion, none of them knew his tricks in the same way as his brother, and he had to be quick on his feet in order to avoid having his head cut off accidentally. Ria refused to watch them anymore, for she said that she did not want to witness anyone bleeding to death on the grounds, especially when she was so fond of them, and when they _insisted_ on having conversations while they fought. Today, they discussed the lack of the Change in their lives. Surprisingly, Farkas seemed unphased by it, though it had turned Vilkas' world completely on end. "It's not so bad, once you get used to it. Been fighting more to make up for it. 'S all I need."

And then Vilkas told him a little bit about the destruction of Snowsbranch, the horror of the ruins and the intense heat that seemed to boil from the dragon.

"But you killed it?" Farkas asked.

"With help," Vilkas said, grudgingly, as they circled each other at a distance until Farkas closed it, two quick steps and a chop of his greatsword at Vilkas' head.

"Is it true what they're saying, then? That she takes their souls?"

"I don't know what happened, exactly," Vilkas said, and he kicked a booted foot at Farkas' shins.

Farkas reacted quickly, leaping back to avoid the attack, and laughed. "No?"

"Some kind of magic. I don't know if it was the dragon's soul, as the stories say, but she definitely absorbed _something_." The swords met again and held, before Vilkas slid the blade away, cutting sharply at Farkas' right in a movement so smooth it could only have come from years of practice, of muscle memory. "I didn't ask her about it, or at least I didn't have a chance before she ran off into the night."

Farkas ignored that comment, though his eyebrows rose. "Just think, brother—the Dovahkiin returned to Skyrim to fight the dragons, and she's one of us."

"I don't know if she's the Dovahkiin," Vilkas said. "Somehow I imagined the Dragonborn would be a little more—heroic."

And now his brother really did laugh, stepping away from the fight and sheathing his sword. "A little more heroic? You killed a dragon with her after rescuing a child from kidnappers, isn't that pretty damn heroic enough? What do you want, exactly?"

Vilkas scowled at him, but did not have an answer.

"So, brother, what happened with the cat?" Farkas asked.

"Snapped its neck," Vilkas growled, and then: "I'm done for the day."

"As you wish," Farkas replied, and then grinned. "But you know, brother, if you ever need to _talk_ about anything—like perhaps a certain living legend?—you know where to find me."

"I don't. Need. To. Talk."

"As you wish."

* * *

><p>Later that day, after he had cooled down from the practice fight, Vilkas hunted Aela down to the plains outside Whiterun, where she lay in the grass, stalking a giant mammoth from a distance of about fifty feet. He was unsure whether she was hunting it, or just seeing how close she could move without being noticed—apparently the latter, for when she heard him coming, she raised one hand in warning but did not rise. Instead, he lay down in the grass next to her, inching forward on his stomach until they lay side by side in the golden shadows of the sunset.<p>

"Vilkas," she greeted him in a low voice, though her eyes never left the mammoth.

"Aela," he replied.

"Welcome home," she said, and wriggled forward in the grass, her bow at her side, before she looked away from her prey and at him, gaze sharpening suddenly. "You are anxious. Let me guess, you've spoken to Kodlak."

"He says you and Skjor have refused to search for the cure or cease the transformations."

Aela's beautiful face creased in a frown as she moved, slowly and steadily across the plain. The mammoth remained unconcerned, oblivious, grazing on the sharp Whiterun tundra grass. "We are the children of Hircine now," she said. "Whatever Kodlak believes about the legacy of Ysgramor, my mother and her mother and her mother before her, all of them are wolves. That is my bloodline as much as Hrotti Blackblade's human soul. I will not give it up."

"Kodlak is determined," Vilkas said, as he followed her.

"I respect the old man," Aela said, as she came to her feet in a fluid, graceful movement, "But I will not heed him in this folly. My soul will go to the Hunting Grounds when I die, to join my mother and ancestors. And if Kodlak seeks to stop me, well, we shall see how successful he is at _that_." As she said the word _that_ she had drawn the bow, notched an arrow, and sent it flying at the mammoth's eye. It struck true, and the beast reared up in shock, bellowing in pain. "Skjor and I have our own plans. This does not seem the time, with the Silver Hand becoming bolder."

There was a trick to fighting the great beasts. Vilkas remembered the sheer size of the first mammoth he'd slain, at the age of thirteen. Jergen had taken him out onto the plains beneath the light of Masser and Secunda to show him that no matter how large the opponent, a well-placed blade could fell him. The lessons had not left him: fight with strategy, darting in and out to avoid being crushed. Cut the hamstrings. Always be aware of the flailing limbs of the giant creature. Target the soft, vulnerable parts: the eyes and the belly. _In a way, not unlike fighting a dragon_, he thought, as he assisted Aela in the kill, running for the mammoth and striking its hind leg, one and then the other, as its furious attention focused on the Huntress, who darted easily away, whirling to fire another arrow at the mammoth's other eye, effectively blinding it. After that, it was an easy kill, with the mammoth blinded and down on its knees. It would feed Jorrvaskr for months, with the meat not consumed within the week salted, cured, and stored in the basements for the long winter seasons. Its pelt would serve as warm sleeping furs, and armor.

"I don't like it, Aela. We've always acted together."

Aela delivered the final blow, an arrow through its skull at close range. With a sigh, the beast collapsed, slumping to the ground, and she went to pull her arrows from its eyes as Vilkas cleaned the mammoth's blood from his "I don't like it any more than you do, Vilkas, but this is one thing I cannot abide."

"That is your final word on the matter?" Vilkas asked, as they stood facing each other in the fading light.

"Yes," Aela replied, lifting her chin, before she looked down at the beast they'd brought down. "Will you have Brill come with a carriage for the meat?"

"I'll let him know," Vilkas said. "And so I take my leave."

And he jogged across the plains, he wondered whether Kodlak's trust in him was misplaced. He could not imagine himself in the Harbinger's position. He had always assumed that Skjor would take Kodlak's place when the old man went to the Hunting Grounds, but with the recent tumult in the ranks, he was unsure of how that would work. Skjor would not leave the Companions, no, but if Kodlak was determined to cure them all of the beastblood… To be Harbinger required a steady hand and a steadier heart, and he was aware that he was too consumed by his emotions, too given to fury and passion, to take on that burden.

_Fury_ made him think of the woman again, and he wondered where she could be, what she might be doing. Whether she was still alive. Kodlak had seemed so sure that her actions had a purpose, but he had seen firsthand the wild recklessness in her heart, the fierce joy in battle. Bedding her had been a battle of another sort, for she had been all fire there too, never surrendering even in the most intimate of moments. It had been a long time since he'd had a woman so—sure of what she wanted. And if was being honest with himself, a long time since he'd enjoyed it so much. She had fallen asleep before him, and he remembered laying there in the dark, still in shock from the entire evening, and realizing for the briefest of moments that while he had thought her ugly before, there was a certain—something—about her face that fascinated him. Perhaps the sheer unapologetic pride of her, even vulnerable and naked. Spitting on the ground in disgust, he could feel himself stirring at the memory, confused, desire mixed with fury and distaste. He despised everything she stood for, competent warrior or no, but for some reason, even with all of the rest of his life gradually falling to pieces around him, he couldn't get her out of his head. She remained, an annoying pebble in his boot, constantly underfoot, constantly on his mind even hundreds of miles away.

* * *

><p>By the time Sigrid made the journey back to Riverwood, night had fallen. The sleepy little town, now guarded by a detachment from Whiterun, had shuttered its doors for the night, though a few of the townspeople were heading into the Sleeping Giant Inn for a nightcap. She followed them in, finding herself in a broad room with a warm, crackling fire in its center. It seemed less the sort of place to have overnight guests as it did a place for the local villagers to congregate and drink together. She glanced around, catching sight of the bartender, in whispered conversation with the innkeeper, a woman who appeared to be around forty winters of age, perhaps older. She had the sort of ageless quality that comes with travel: a weatherbeaten face that would look older than its time when she was young, and younger than her time when she was old, leathery and unchanging. As soon as she saw Sigrid watching her, she strode across the room with the self-importance of a queen.<p>

"You're that visitor, been poking around," the innkeeper greeted her, sharply. Her harsh-planed face and blonde hair seemed vaguely familiar, though Sigrid could not remember where she had met the woman before.

"What's it to you?" she asked, unsure whether this would be a challenge. Sometimes these small towns could be quite suspicious of outsiders. She'd had to fight her way out more than once because some yokel had taken offense to her tone or her face.

"I'm the innkeeper, it's my business to keep track of strangers," the woman replied, expression unchanging, though her eyes flicked up and down Sigrid's frame, taking in the battered armor and shield, the well-polished sword, the tattoos snaking up her neck and the scar still newly red on her cheek. Sigrid could not tell how she felt about what she saw.

"I'd like to rent the attic room," she said, cautiously, half-expecting an ambush.

The woman's gaze sharpened, and she lowered her voice. "Attic room, eh? Well… we don't have an attic room, but you can have the one on the left. Make yourself at home. Ten septims."

Sigrid handed her the money and walked carefully towards the door to the left of the bar, listening carefully for the tell-tale sound of footsteps that would signal a rushed attack, an assassin's blade towards her back. When no one came for her, she opened the door to the room and closed it behind her, and then went to check in the wardrobe, but found only an old, discarded blacksmith's apron. There was a narrow bed, covered in worn but serviceable linen, and a chair next to it, a chest in front. It was quite silent. "What the hell do I do now?" she asked the empty room, and sat down in the chair to wait.

When the door opened, she was instantly on her feet, dagger drawn, ready to fight.

The innkeeper held up her hands and exclaimed, "Stop! I'm not going to attack you." Another appraising glance, as though reevaluating her opinion, and then she went on, "So you're the Dragonborn I've been hearing so much about. I think you're looking for this?" And she held out to Sigrid a horn cared with ancient runes, which Sigrid recognized with a sinking stomach were in the dragon language.

As she took the horn of Jurgen Windcaller from the innkeeper, Sigrid finally recognized the planes of the woman's face: she had been the 'friend' of Farengar Secret-Fire, the woman who'd sardonically congratulated her upon retrieving the Dragonstone from Bleak Falls Barrow. Even when wearing a dress and not the travel-worn leather and cape she'd worn before, the woman had a dangerous grace, as though at any moment she could swing into battle. She hadn't noticed when she'd first entered the inn because she hadn't been looking, truly looking. Her father, always a keen observer of his surroundings, would have been ashamed.

"My name is Delphine, and we need to talk. Follow me." She did not wait for Sigrid before striding from the room, so the mercenary took the opportunity to stow the artifact in her pack, safely hidden from prying eyes, before she carefully followed after her, the dagger still drawn, just in case. Even though this woman knew the courtiers of Jarl Balgruuf did not mean that she did not have designs on her life. She'd certainly made it through the depths of Ustengrav and had lived to return to the Sleeping Giant, so she was, at the very least, comptent with a blade. Sigrid trailed her cautiously across the inn's main room and towards a door across the hall. The room there was empty, and looked like a slightly larger version of the room Sigrid had rented.

"Close the door," Delphine said, and Sigrid obliged, shutting it with her left hand with the dagger concealed behind her in her right. It was not an ideal weapon, but in such a close space it would have to do. As she waited, Delphine walked to a wardrobe and opened it, and to Sigrid's surprise, revealed a staircase leading down a hidden room. The woman looked over her shoulder and smirked at seeing her surprise. "_Now_ we can talk," she said, and went down the stairs with a suspicious lightness of step. Sigrid followed her, still on edge, though the room itself also appeared empty of assailants. In the center of the room, a book of the Dragonborn and a large map lay on a long table. An alchemy station stood in the corner, shelves around it holding a number of rare ingredients. Sigrid was more interested in the weapons hanging in the racks on the walls, especially a long, thin blade with a slight curve to it. She had never seen anything like it in her life.

But she did not have time to admire the weapon, for Delphine had fixed her with that sharp gaze. "The Greybeards seem to think you're the Dragonborn. I hope they're right."

"May be," Sigrid said shortly. "If they are, what's it to you?"

"You'll forgive me if I don't asume something's true just because the Greybeards think so. I just handed you the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller. Does that make me Dragonborn, too?"

"You've as much right to the title as anyone," Sigrid said, "Just tell me what you want with me."

"I didn't go to all this trouble on a whim!" Delphine's voice had taken on a pleading edge, though the look in her eyes was the same as the first time Sigrid had seen her in Dragonsreach: hungry, as though she'd snap Sigrid up in a minute if it would suit her purposes. "I needed to make sure it wasn't a Thalmor trap. I'm _not _your enemy. I already gave you the Horn; I'm actually trying to help you. I just need you to hear me out."

_That_ surprised her. She had encountered the Thalmor more than once in her travels, and if before the dragons had returned someone had asked her whether there existed a people she felt deserved to be wiped from the face of the earth, she would have said the Thalmor. They were merciless in their wrath, and the stories her father had told her of their war atrocities had remained with her throughout her life. Her own personal experience had done nothing to dissuade her from this belief. "Go on," she said. "I'm listening."

Delphine stood at the table like a military general, hands leaning upon it at either side of the map. "Like I said in my note, I've heard that you might be Dragonborn. I'm part of a group that's been looking for you… well, someone like you, for a very long time. If you really are Dragonborn, that is. Before I tell you any more, I need to make sure I can trust you."

Sigrid's snort of amusement drew a look of disapproval from the woman, but she said, "How do I know I can trust _you_?"

"If you don't trust me, you were a fool to walk in here in the first place."

"I'm more than capable of taking care of myself, thank you," she replied dryly, then crossed her arms over her chest, the dagger temporarily returned to a sheath at her belt. "Why did you take the Horn from Ustengrav?" she asked, meeting Delphine square in the eye. The woman did not blink, did not look away. In Sigrid's experience, this meant one of two things: that she told the truth or that she was totally, irreparably, insane.

"I knew the Greybeards would send you there if they thought you were Dragonborn. They're nothing if not predictable," she said scornfully. "When you showed up here, I knew you were the one the Greybeards sent, and not some Thalmor plant."

"Why would the Thalmor be after you?" Sigrid asked. There were a number of reasons, of course: Delphine could be a known Talos worshipper, though as a Breton it seemed unlikely. She could have done any number of things, up to and including _existing_ and _being a human_.

"We're very old enemies," the woman said, and for a second her direct gaze wavered, remembering perhaps the loss of old comrades. Delphine, though, was not one for maudlin memory, and she was instantly back in the present, all business. "If my suspicions are correct, they might have something to do with the dragons returning. But that isn't important right now. What is important is that you might be Dragonborn.

"Why are you looking for the Dragonborn?" Sigrid asked. "If I was the Dragonborn. Which I might not be." The weight of her sword and dagger were comforting, if this woman suddenly turned on her she was confident that she could take her. Already she had surveyed the angles of the room, figuring out how to use the table to her advantage to herd Delphine into a corner.

"We remember what most don't—that the Dragonborn is the ultimate dragon slayer," Delphine said. "You're the only one that can kill a dragon permanently by devouring its soul—can you do it? Can you devour a dragon's soul?"

She remembered the feeling of being seized by some alien intelligence, the warmth that she felt down to her very bones, the scalding heat and oppressive weight of knowledge of centuries past. All within her, as though her mortal body alone could contain worlds. How could she even begin to explain that to this woman, all business and paranoia and sharp edges? How could she even trust her, when she was obviously still hiding things from her? But if she truly wanted to rid Skyrim of these dragons, she couldn't continue fumbling around in the dark. Delphine obviously knew more about the situation than she did, and if she was part of a group that was looking into the trouble, then Sigrid would have to go along with it, though always keeping one eye on her back, least she find a knife in it. She took a deep breath and said, "Yes. That's how I first discovered I—might be Dragonborn."

"Good," Delphine said. "You'll have a chance to prove it to me soon enough."

This did not put her at ease, and so, arms still crossed, she narrowed her eyes at the innkeeper. "So what's the part you're not telling me, eh?"

The thin smile that crossed Delphine's harsh face was not one of amusement, but of a dark humor. "The dragons aren't just coming back, they're coming back to _life._ They weren't gone somewhere for all these years. They were dead, killed off centuries ago by my predecessors. Now something's happening to bring them back to life. And I need you to help me stop it."

"What makes you think they're coming back to _life_?" she asked. They were certainly returning, she had irrefutable proof of that, but she had no idea where they had gone when they disappeared, or what had happened after that.

"I _know_ they are. I've visited their ancient burial mounds and found them empty," Delphine said, "Thanks to the Dragonstone that you provided for me. And I've figured out where the next one will come back to life. We're going to go there, and you're going to kill that dragon. If we succeed, I'll tell you anything you want to know."

Sigrid thought about this for a long moment, and sighed. It seemed that part and parcel of this hero business was running errands in the dark, in the hope that someone might explain something to her. But it seemed necessary. "So where are we headed?"

"Kynesgrove," Delphine replied immediately. "There's an ancient dragon burial mound near there. If we can get there before it happens, maybe we'll learn how to stop it."

"Let's go kill a dragon," Sigrid said sardonically.

"I need to get into my traveling gear," Delphine replied, apparently oblivious to the sarcasm. "Give me a minute and I'll be ready."

Sigrid followed Delphine up the stairs again and waited by the bar while the woman slipped into another room, presumably to change, and scowled, still with a bad taste in her mouth about the entire business. She hated being in the dark, hated taking orders from men or women who had yet to prove themselves to her, or at the very least to offer her just compensation. While Delphine might have been competent, and seemed to have some knowledge of the dragons' return, that hungry look in her eyes set Sigrid on edge. There was definitely something more going on and she didn't like it. _Hero business_, she thought to herself, _easy way to get yourself mixed up in something you don't understand_.

"That's better," Delphine said, now dressed in the battered leather and steel armor of a foreign style that she'd worn at Dragonsreach. She looked much more comfortable in this, than in the innkeeper's dress, which Sigrid now realized was a disguise that she might have worn for years, but had never settled into. The Delphine she saw now was the true one. "Let's get on the road to Kynesgrove," she said, before turning to the hulking barkeep. "Orgnar, you watch the inn until I get back."

"Happy trails," he grunted.

Outside, the darkness had lightened somewhat beneath the two moons, Masser full and brilliant. Delphine lit a torch anyway, as the two women walked down the road. "Kynesgrove is this way. We can travel together or split up and meet there. Your choice."

"We'll travel together," Sigrid replied, thinking, _so I can keep you in front of me, with a full eye on your sword hand._

"Follow me, then," Delphine said, and they set off down the road, which would lead them directly to the small village of Kynesgrove. She was thankful for that, at least, for she had been sleeping rough for the last few days, and road travel was always easier on the feet. Following Delphine became something she did not even have to think about: it came naturally, one foot in front of the other, until she could almost relax without thinking of anything, the mindset that had gotten her through so many midnight marches in the past.

As they rounded a curve, she was suddenly shocked back into awareness when something barreled into her and a knife blade glanced off of her armor as she whirled to meet the threat, though without time to draw a blade of her own. The hooded, black-armored Khajit knocked her to the ground and they grappled there for a minute, as he tried to stab her in the neck. She deflected the blade on her gauntlet managed to flip him over and pin him down, though he still struck at her. She gripped his head, twisting sharply. Instantly, he went limp and still, the knife clattering to the ground. Delphine, too late, ran back to her. "What happened?"

Sigrid didn't answer right away, and instead went through the corpse's pockets. She found a heavy coin purse, which she promptly took for herself, and a note that read:

_As instructed, you are to eliminate the woman Sigrid by any means necessary. The Black Sacrament has been performed—somebody wants this poor fool dead.  
>We've already received payment for the contract. Failure is not an option.<em>  
>—<em>Astrid<em>

"Looks like an assassin," she said, trying to think who would have hired someone to kill her: surely it wouldn't have been Vilkas? She knew he'd be furious when he discovered her gone, and felt a strange pang of regret. No. Too honorable. Perhaps someone from Whiterun had spread the word that the newest Thane of the city had been slaying dragons. She had always known that getting involved in "hero business" would get her killed, but not necessarily by an assassin on the side of the road. There was no other identifying information on the corpse to hint at who had hired him, or even where he had come from.

"You all in one piece?" Delphine asked, somewhat sardonically, "Don't want you facing that dragon all poked full of holes."

"Don't worry," Sigrid said grimly, "The last time I faced a dragon, a bandit had cut half of my face open."

"Hah!" Delphine said, and then gestured at the road. "Come on, we need to keep moving."

And as though nothing had happened, the women returned to their easy pace, mostly in silence. Occasionally, Delphine would speak to Sigrid, little tidbits such as, "There's an inn at Kynesgrove, the Braidwood. I hear they serve a nice dark ale—nothing on the Sleeping Giant, of course." Sigrid did not respond, lost in her thoughts. She'd annoyed many people over the years but never anyone who would hire an assassin. Her enemies preferred to face her on the field of battle, face to face, like true warriors. This was the first real inkling she'd had that this Dragonborn business was serious, and men and women she'd never met felt she was enough of a threat to remove her entirely from this place of existence. It was a sobering thought, one that made her wonder whether she wasn't just better off minding her own business in Whiterun, or leaving Skyrim all together. She'd wandered for so many years, and the sudden desire to settle down and not wear herself out pounding the ground of Tamriel could be overridden…

Delphine was speaking again, though, jolting her from her thoughts. "I'm glad you were willing to trust me. I know it probably wasn't the best way to introduce myself. But old habits…you know."

"I know," Sigrid said, a sour humor to the words, "You're speaking to a woman who just killed an assassin by the side of the road."

As the road curved around towards Windhelm, what was a light dusting of snow built up to thicker banks, cloaking the grass in pristine white crystals, dotted with the red of snowberries. Sigrid couldn't help herself: it had been years, literally, since she'd tasted one, so she crouched and picked a branch from the bush. It was as sweet and tart as she remembered it, the chill of the juice coating her tongue making her think of home, of her father, who used to pick the snowberries for her as a girl from the bush outside their little cottage. The memory hit her with the force of a blow. The further north she went, the closer she came to the woods where she'd scattered his ashes, for he had not wanted to be laid beneath the cold ground when he died. She remembered him where he'd fallen in the woods, felled by bandits while Sigrid was out stalking a deer. She had found him there, his blood staining the snow, looking very small and old, as he'd never looked before, even with his lame leg. _Sigrid_, he'd whispered. _My dear girl. Please. Burn my body and scatter the ashes in the woods by our home, that I might be with your mother again._ After she'd carried his body home and fulfilled his last wishes, she'd taken what she could carry and the first road to Morrowind. And she hadn't returned since.

She was not so lost in her thoughts that she failed to see the man at the side of the road, not this time. Unlike the assassin he did not even bother to hide, coming out from the tres after Delphine had run by him; standing in full view, with a dagger out. "Hand over your valuables or I'll gut you like a fish!" he exclaimed.

"My friend, I'd suggest you try robbing someone else. I haven't the mood or the time," Sigrid said, one hand resting on the hilt of her sword, ready to draw it at the slightest provocation.

"Don't you just walk away from me!" the man growled, as he lunged for her. Before Sigrid had time to react, she heard footsteps and the whistling of a blade through the air, and the thief's head flew from his body in a spurt of arterial blood. It clattered to the ground as Delphine, who'd returned to see what problem was. She nonchalantly wiped her sword clean on the man's corpse, looked at Sigrid, and smiled. "We'd better keep moving."

"Thanks," Sigrid said, as they began running again. "I had that under control, though."

"Of course you did," Delphine replied. "But time is of the essence. Come on."

As they moved further north, the sun began to rise, the weak morning light barely showing through the clouds, and snow fell, lightly at first, as they approached the gates of Windhelm, heavier as they crossed the bridge of the city. "I hope you're Dragonborn, I really do," Delphine murmured, leading Sigrid up the path of a large hill. "But we'll find out soon enough. Not too much further now. Kynesgrove is just on the road to the southeast of here. Keep a sharp lookout, we can't afford any more delays."

The road curved around the mountain, and Sigrid could see the thatched roofs of homes and inns nestled in a clearing. She was reminded of Snowsbranch, and her stomach tightened—if she were too late again and found broken limbs and charred corpses, she didn't know what she would do. And she could hear the roar of a dragon in the distance. As she and Delphine ran towards the town, a woman dressed in a millworker's clothes came pelting from the town's center towards them, screaming. "No! You don't want to go over there! There's a dragon! It's—it's attacking!" She was nearly wild with panic.

"Where's this dragon?" Sigrid remanded.

"It flew over the town and landed on the old dragon burial mound," the woman sobbed. "I don't know what it's doing up there, but I'm not waiting around to find out."

"Take the rest of the villagers with you," Sigrid ordered her. "Get yourself together, woman! Get _everyone_ out of here."

"Come on, hurry!" Delphine interrupted her urgently, "We might be too late."

Though the lack of concern for the villagers set off warning bells in Sigrid's head, she had to admit that Delphine was correct. If the dragons were to be stopped, she had to know what was bringing them back. She followed the woman up through the rocky hill above the town of Kynesgrove, and saw above them the huge, black form of a dragon alighting above the burial mound, its gigantic wings pushing the air so that it hovered above the ground there, mad yellow eyes glowing in the misty light. The snow still fell around them, cold on Sigrid's eyelashes, as she and Delphine crouched behind a rock, swords drawn, but waiting for something unknown, some terrifying nightmare to come to life.

The dragon spoke in that rumbling voice that sounded like an earthquake: "Sahloknir! Ziil gro dovah ulse!"

"Lorkhan's eyes!" Delphine hissed, "Look at that big bastard! Keep your head down, let's see what it does."

The dragon roared, the sound of its wings deafening as it lowered itself, hovering just above the ground as it called, again: "Sahloknir! Ziil gro dovah ulse! Slen Tiid Vo!"

"I don't know what's going on, let's watch and wait…this is worse than I thought," Delphine murmured.

As Sigrid watched, as the dragon growled, another dragon was forming from nothing, out of the ether. It reminded her of the rapid disintegration of the dragons as their souls melted beneath her skin, but in reverse: instead of exploding in a whirl of color and light, leaving only bones behind, now the bones formed first, the skeleton looking blindly up at the huge black dragon, as if for guidance. "Alduin, thuri!" the resurrected bones said, now covered in muscle, now scales, now flesh. It flexed its legs, as though the long sleep had worn them, and asked, "Boaan tiid vokriiha suleyksejun kruziik?"

"Geh, Sahloknir, kaali mir!" was its reply. And then the giant looked right at her, and, staring into its mad yellow eyes, she knew that it was the dragon from Helgen, and that it recognized her. For what seemed an eternity she stood frozen as it hovered in the air, staring directly at her, its gaze boring through her. Reflected in the whirling gold eyes she caught a glimpse of endless years of rage and fury, of deaths beyond number, and a desire for _revenge_. In those eyes was a hunger that could devour the world. "Ful, losei Dovahkiin? Zu'u koraav nid nol dov do hi," Alduin growled, and when she remained frozen, too stunned by the glimpse of the dragon's true nature to respond, said dismissively, "You do not even know our tongue, do you? Such arrogance, to dare take for yourself the name of Dovah! Sahloknir, krii daar joorre!" And with a crushing wave of wind, Alduin took flight, before either Delphine or Sigrid could react.

And as he receded into the horizon, Sahloknir rose. With a wild shriek of rage, or joy, the dragon took to the air for the first time in centuries, whirling in ferocious circles, and then it turned on them, breathing a firey _yol_.

"You'll have to do better than that!" Delphine cried, as she sheathed her sword and drew her bow, firing quickly at the dragon as it wheeled away.

"I am Sahloknir! Hear my Voice and despair!" it growled, and landed before them with a crushing thud of flesh and bone on earth, and opened its mouth to breath fire at them again, its mouth opening so that she could see its rows of long teeth.

Something in her snapped then and the words came out of her mouth: "_FUS ROH!"_ and a bolt of concussive force, glowing blue with magic, burst from her lips and rocked the dragon's head back. Startled, the dragon growled, "Dovahkiin, your voice is no match for mine!" as it took to the sky again, knocking Delphine to her knees with the force of its wings alone.

"Do your worst!" the woman cried, scrabbling to her feet again and picking up her bow, "We've got to bring it down!"

The arrows apparently did the trick, or at least enraged the dragon enough so that it came to the ground again, rearing up on its hind legs in an attempt to crush them to death, and the women dodged, running between its legs, Delphine still firing arrows without blinking, Sigrid swinging her sword viciously at its stomach before she threw herself out of the way before the entire weight of its body came down upon her. "Now it's my turn, you son of a bitch!" she yelled at him.

"My Voice has been silent for too long," Sahloknir said, and then shrieked in pain as she slammed her shield into his nose. "It's to be a real fight, then. Good!" he growled, as he tried to catch her between those vicious teeth, to bite and rend, to shake her like a rat. As the great skull lowered, twisting like a snake to snap at her legs, Sigrid leapt atop its head, holding on for dear life as the dragon thrashed wildly as it tried to throw her off. Somehow, she managed to keep her balance, stabbing down through its skull and brain as it howled in pain and impotent rage. The hot blood burned her, and in its death throes, it finally threw her from its head. Sigrid flew through the air, landing in a painful, bruised heap on the cold, snowy ground. As she stumbled to her feet, swordless, she realized that the light had faded from Sahloknir's eyes and his great body had fallen still.

"I'll be damned!" Delphine breathed, "You _did_ it. Wait! Something's happening…" As Sigrid had gone to recover her sword from the dragon's corpse, it began to disintegrate into flame and wind, the whistling of its corporeal form dissolving. "Gods above!" Delphine exclaimed.

The soul descended upon her, vanishing into her. This time she held her ground, fighting against the urge to vomit. Every time, it was a little easier, and that terrified her. She could not stop it: it seemed that these encounters found her out whether she wished it or no. Sigrid avoided her eyes as she pulled her sword from the skeleton, as well as shoving some of the heavy dragon bones and scales into her pack. When she looked up again, Delphine was watching her with a mixture of awe and that strange hunger that made her so uncomfortable. "So you really are… I…it's true, isn't it? You really are Dragonborn," she said, as though unable to believe it herself. "I owe you some answers, don't I? Go ahead. Whatever you want to know. Nothing held back."

"Who are you and what do you want with me?"

"I'm one of the last members of the Blades," Delphine said shortly, and Sigrid's eyes widened. Her father had told her of the Blades when she was younger, the Emperor's personal guard before the Aldmeri Dominon and the Great War, when the Thalmor effectively decimated them. As far as her father had known, none of them were left alive, after the great massacre when one hundred heads were delivered to the Emperor, beginning the war itself. And they had been personally disbanded by the Emperor after the White-Gold Concordat. For Delphine to admit such a thing could be tantamount to a death sentence if it reached the wrong ears. If she told the truth, no wonder she was so paranoid. "For the last two hundred years, since the last Dragonborn emperor, we've been searching for a purpose," Delphine went on. "And now that the dragons are coming back, our purpose is clear again: we need to stop them. We need to help _you_ stop them."

Whether or not she believed this woman, whether or not she believed that the Blades were really still operating somewhere… This was the best lead she had to go on so far. "What's your next move?" she asked cautiously.

"The first thing we need to do is figure out who's behind the dragons. The Thalmor are our best lead. If they aren't involved, they'll know who is."

"Are the Thalmor after you _personally_ or just any remaining Blades agents in general?" Sigrid asked.

"I don't know," Delphine admitted. "I've been very careful about covering my tracks, and the Sleeping Giant is genuinely my livelihood… but the Thalmor have their ways. I've fought them in the shadows, all across Tamriel, over the decades… but I thought we were a match for them before, and we were wrong."

"And what makes you think the Thalmor are bringing the dragons back?"

"Nothing solid…yet. But my gut tells me it can't be anybody else," Delphine said darkly. "The Empire had captured Ulfric. The war was basically over. Then a dragon attacks, Ulfric escapes, and the war is back on? And now the dragons are attacking everywhere, indiscriminately.? Skyrim is weakened; the Empire is weakened. Who else gains from that but the Thalmor?"

"It makes sense," Sigrid said, and it did, but not entirely. Something didn't quite add up, but Delphine would not be able to fill out the fuller picture. That would be up to her, if she chose to do it. "So we need to find out what the Thalmor know about the dragons."

Delphine nodded, sharply. "If we could get into the Thalmor Embassy…it's the center of their operations in Skyrim… Problem is, that place is locked up tighter than a miser's purse. They could teach me a few things about paranoia…"

"So how do you plan to get into the embassy?" Sigrid asked.

"I'm not sure yet. I have a few ideas, but I'll need some time to pull some things together. Meet me back in Riverwood. If I've not returned when you get there, wait for me. I shouldn't be long. Keep an eye on the sky. This is only going to get worse."

"It only ever does," Sigrid said darkly, and took her leave.

* * *

><p>In the end, she took a carriage from Windhelm to Ivarstead, for she was exhausted and it cut the journey time in half. In the back of the carriage, laying on her back on the long bench, she mulled over everything that had happened to within the last few days. She didn't believe in destiny, but some irresitable force did seem to be pushing her into these situations. Dragons attacking <em>just<em> at the right time; finding the Word walls in whatever dungeon she happened to stumble into. She had tried to do the "right" thing whenever she could throughout her life, to make the less evil of two choices when she could, but this was beginning to go above and beyond anything she could have imagined. Breaking into a Thalmor embassy? And then Sigrid laughed, and closed her eyes, allowing the rocking cart to lull her to sleep. _That, at least, I can do without feeling too put out by it—if anyone needs killing, it's those bloody elves_.

In Ivarstead, she stopped by to say hello to Wilhelm and have a quick bite to eat before making the long trek up the 7,000 Steps. "Welcome back, lass," the innkeeper said, "Didn't think I'd ever see you again, I must say."

"No?" Sigrid asked.

"No," he replied, and grinned. "Usually, the pilgrims who make that particular journey as hungover as you were don't survive it."

"Well, I'm a little harder to kill than your average citizen," Sigrid said dryly, and raised her mug in a silent toast. As she speared the warm roast beef on her knife and chewed meditatively, she sighed. "Wilhelm, why is it that it's seven thousand steps? Seven hundred wasn't enough? Or even two thousand?"

The innkeeper laughed and pushed a plate of roasted potatoes at her. "A question many pilgrims have bemoaned over the years. But if it were anything less, it wouldn't be much of a pilgrimage, would it? And there would go the only reason I seem to get much custom in this quiet corner of the world."

"Well, Wilhelm, you're likely to have a repeat customer," she said darkly, "I have a feeling that I'm going to be going to High Hrothgar rather more often than most." And, slamming the mug back down on the bar, she took her leave.

The walk up to High Hrothgar was uneventful, compared to the others. She was forced to dispatch a few hungry wolves, but did not even bother to skin them. She had a purpose now, to see once and for all whether the Greybeards would refuse to recognize her as Dragonborn, and allow her to go on with her life as it had been. Just because she did not run, now, did not mean necessarily that this destiny had chosen _her_ for its own strange purposes.

High Hrothgar seemed more foreboding this morn that it ever had before, but she strode up the stairs with her head held high nevertheless. Inside, she found the Greybeards meditating in their central room, and all of them looked up when she entered, though only Arngeir spoke. "Greetings, Dovahkiin," he murmured, and his eyes widened as he saw the carved horn artifact that she held out to him.

"Ah! You've retrieved the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller!" Arngeir said. "Well done. You have now passed all the trials. Come with me. It is time for us to recognize you formally as Dragonborn. And you are ready to learn the final word of Unrelenting Force, _dah_, which means _push_."

She followed him, and stood where he indicated that she stand: the center of the room, surrounded at the edges by the hooded men, ageless, timeless. Master Wulfgar came forward, looked at her with the serene unconcern of a man whose mind is not always upon this world, and spoke: "_Dah_." With a whisper and a crackle, the glowing word appeared on the ground, burning, calling to her. Inexorably, she was drawn forward, staring down at the runes as they filled her vision.

"With all three words together, this Shout is much more powerful. Use it wisely," Arngeir said, quietly. "Master Wulfgar will not gift you with his knowledge of 'dah.'"

And Wulfgar bowed, and the whistling wind enveloped her, and she knew now: _dah_. "You have completed your training, Dragonborn. We would Speak to you. Stand between us, and prepare yourself. Few can withstand the unbridled Voice of the Greybeards. But you are ready."

The bottom dropped from her heart. _No_. But she could not run, now, not now. It was too late for running. She had faced it thus far, and would continue to stand with her head held high. If she thought too much about this now, she would falter. And so she stood, chin lifted, and faced the Greybeards as they spoke in concert, rumbling voices fell and terrible, replete with glaciers sliding down the face of Tamriel, of mountains crumbling, of volcanoes erupting. Of the river of time eroding the world. Their words echoed, and she suddenly knew them, though she had yet to learn each individual Word, she knew their meaning: " Lingrah krosis saraan Strundu'ul, voth nid balaan klov praan nau. Naal Thu'umu, mu ofan nii nu, Dovahkiin, naal seleyk do Kaan, naal suleyk do Shor, ahrk naal suleyk do Atmorasewuth. Meys nu Ysmir, Dovahsebrom. Dohmaam daar rok." _Long has the Stormcrown languished, with no worthy brow to sit upon. By our breath we bestow it now to you in the name of Kyne, in the name of Shor, and in the name of Atmora of Old. You are Ysmir now, the Dragon of the North, hearken to it._

Their words enveloped her, not with force, as she had expected, but with warmth. They were fell words, yes, but somehow, strangely comforting. The Greybeards knew her, proclaimed her for what she was. A woman? A dragon? Or some combination of both? She found herself kneeling on the ground, whole and hearty but still alive and with her mind intact, though tears streamed down her face, as they had not since she had burnt her father on a funeral pyre. The moment was ineffable: she was terrified, rocked to the very core of herself. She could not think, but merely let the Words wash over her.

_You are Ysmir now, the Dragon of the North. Hearken to it!_ echoed through her mind.

"Dovahkiin," Arngeir said, his voice both triumphant and infinitely sad, "You have tasted the Voice of the Greybeards, and passed through unscathed. High Hrothgar is open to you."

And Sigrid, her hands on the cold stone tiles the only thing anchoring her to the world, picked herself up from the floor and wiped her face with the back of her hand.

_Dovahkiin_…


	14. Transformations

**AN: **As always I'd really, really appreciate it if you would let me know what you think, good or bad! :D

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><p><em>Small heed didst thou take to all that I told,<br>And false were the words of thy friends;  
>For now the sword of my friend I see,<br>That waits all wet with blood_.

—The Poetic Edda, from _Grímnismál_, translated by Henry Adams Bellows

* * *

><p>Within the next week, Vilkas had redoubled his efforts to ferret out the cause of the Silver Hand's sudden resurgence. If Kodlak could not, or would not, do it then he would have to take matters into his own hands. Small camps were relatively easy to find and rout: there were a large concentration of them within Whiterun Hold itself, though near the edges of the Reach, and with his nose to the ground and pulling in a few favors he owed from unsavory characters, they were not difficult to track down. Rumors always spread quickly of encampments of well-armed men and women springing up, especially when they carried weapons as distinctive as silver swords. Once he had the locations of their camps, it was relatively simple to track them down and exterminate them, especially when they were within such an easy distance as the Halted Stream. Though he felt a faint prickle of unease that the Silver Hand were growing so bold as to approach Jorrvaskr itself, this only served to strengthen his resolve to remove them from the area.<p>

On Sundas, he decided that the Halted Stream encampment had remained in Whiterun long enough. Aela was already out hunting, and he had not spoken with Skjor since the argument that the man had had with Kodlak; after it, he'd been in the field, with an effective silence. Farkas too had gone, off to Windhelm to return some noble's family sword that had been stolen from under his nose, and Njada and Athis were nowhere to be found. This left Torvar and Ria, who practically vibrated with eagerness when he came to her in the dining hall and said, "Ria, come with me. Time to fight."

"Really? Oh, excellent!" she breathed, and then: "Just give me a moment, let me get my sword."

She kept up the chatter almost all of the way down the road. Her initiation into the Companions had been difficult, for a young warrior: clearing a cave of frost trolls. She was a first-rate bar brawler, and had participated in a number of skirmishes, but had yet to kill a man, though she had assisted in bringing down a giant outside of the Pelagia Farm a few weeks earlier. All of which she would tell you about, at length, if given the opportunity. He sighed, and wondered whether there was not a happy medium between the cheerful chirping of Ria, and the tension-filled journey to Fort Dunstad, where he and Sigrid had almost come to blows. Strangely, he found that he almost would have preferred the latter, though he knew that Ria's chatter was only born of excitement. The girl wanted badly to prove herself, as she always had. She wanted immortality, in name if not in reality: as one of the few Imperial members of the Companions, she always felt she had more to prove.

As they approached, she at least had the sense to silence herself. They crept towards the camp, skirting around the pit in the back, filled with sharpened wooden pikes, to catch unsuspecting travellers. He could smell the stench of the Silver Hand in the camp, sour alcohol and sweat, old blood and polished silver. The last odor filled his nose, almost drowning out every other scent. He gestured for Ria to follow him, and they crept around the edge of the gate, which opened with a slight creak. The sun had not yet broken over the horizon and there were only a few sentries in the rounded yard that hid the cave leading down into the mine below. Vilkas slew one of them before the man had a chance to react, the greatsword decapitating him neatly. The other sentries had noticed now, and with a yell, the battle was joined.

There were tricks to fighting with each shield-sibling that he had learned over the years. With his brother, the two of them moved as one entity, barely even having to look at what the other was doing, an automatic response. Fighting with Farkas was like having a third sword-arm, an extension of his own body. With Aela, he managed the close-up dirty work, the vicious blade-to-blade and hand-to-hand, while she covered his back and picked off the archers and any other warrior rushing in. Even with Skjor, Vilkas had found a rhythm, letting the older man take the lead and covering his back. Even with Sigrid, there had been a disturbing ease of movement. In those brief few fights, she had had the knack, like Farkas, of being exactly where she needed to be in order to cover for him. Ria, on the other hand, did not have the years of experience that the other Companions had. She was still young, not even twenty winters, and it showed. Eager and brave she might have been, but more than once during the battle, Vilkas had to step in to save her neck when she overextended herself by trying to fight two Silver Hand at once.

_If only that damn woman hadn't run off,_ he caught himself thinking as he knocked the mine door open with his shoulder, _I could have taken her, she would have taken care of this more efficiently_. And then he scowled, for any thought of her these days made him scowl.

Ria, at least, attempted to learn from her mistakes. Inside the cave, she was more cautious, allowing him to take the lead and take on the Silver Hand leader himself, fending off the others as he did, though he saw that for all her bravado, she winced every time a man collapsed beneath her blade. Some were simply not cut out for killing: they could do it, but the toll it took began to show. Others became accustomed to it after a time, but in a way that was even worse, the hardening of the heart a tragic thing. Ria's search for glory and immortality had led her to this, a dank and stinking cave, putting down the Silver Hand like so many skeevers, and for a moment he felt a stab of pity for her. He had never had such a moment, having grown up in Jorrvaskr and knowing what it meant to be a Companion from a very young age.

With the last of the Silver Hand dead, he turned to Ria, who looked at him with wide, admiring eyes. "You were amazing!" she exclaimed.

The intense admiration that she showed for all of the Companions made him uncomfortable now, and so he merely shrugged and grunted, "Save it for a time when it's deserved."

Her smile fell instantly, and Vilkas occupied himself with searching through the Silver Hand leader's chest for any information that he could find, partially to cover up his discomfort. He seemed to be constantly on edge these days. At the very least, inside the chest he found a missive that indicated that a powerful merchant in Windhelm had secretly been providing the Silver Hand with funding for weapons and more men. Vilkas smiled grimly: the Companions would have to pay Bern Golden-Fingers a visit to discuss the error of his ways. Ria hesitantly came up to the ledge where he stood, glancing over his shoulders at the piece of paper. Her eyes widened again and she whistled. "That's a _lot_ of money," she said.

"Aye," he replied. "And now we just need to know where the rest of it's been going."

After the Halted Streams camp, he intended to pursue the lead that Farkas had given him: Skjor's informant in the Silver Hand, who had possibly been double-dealing and informed them of the location of the fragment of Wuuthraad in Dustman's Cairn. The unlikely source of the man's identity proved to be Torvar, who accidentally let slip that he'd met the man while in his cups the next night. From his seat across the table, Vilkas heard a snatch of conversation as Torvar was saying to Athis: "And Skjor's friend with a face on 'im like a cow's arse."

"Who?" Vilkas said, ears perked up, suddenly interested.

"Skjor's Silver Hand friend," Torvar slurred, "No sense of humor, that'un."

"You know him?"

"Name's Heddic Bog-Trotter," he said. "Usually find 'im in Rorikstead, though just looking at that weasely face you'd think him a big-city man for sure. Solitude-lookin' milk-drinker."

"You're sure of this," Vilkas said.

"Saw him myself when I was up there t'other day to put th' fists to Mralki," Torvar said. "And Skjor was none too happy about it, either. Swore me to secrecy and all. Oh, shit," he added lamely as he realized what he had done.

Vilkas considered ordering Torvar not to tell Skjor that the secret had slipped, but as Skjor had not yet returned to Jorrvaskr, and it was nearly impossible to keep a secret amongst the drunken rabble, he didn't even bother. "Don't worry about it, Torvar," was all that he said, though he could not keep a wolfish grin from his face. "I won't let on that I know anything of this man."

"Skjor's going to _kill_ me," Torvar said morosely as he looked down into his empty mug of mead. "Well, might as well have another drink 'fore I die."

* * *

><p>Without consulting with his brother, Vilkas set off for Rorikstead that very night, an easy jog, especially when unencumbered by another Companion or extra gear. Rorikstead was a sleepy little hamlet in the plains, with a few small homes and farms dotted around the main town center, which consisted of the Frostfruit Inn, a venerable structure that had been there for eons. The general sleepiness of Rorikstead always depressed him, for it seemed as though the little town was just waiting for something to shock it from its calm. But he had no time to think of such things: tonight was all about business. He nodded to Mralki, who scowled at him as he entered: the innkeeper's last experience with the Companions had been less than pleasant, but that was what happened when one owed money and did not pay. Occasionally he paid in blood and bruises. The usual suspects were in evidence: the Alik'ir warriors who'd been hanging around Whiterun the last few months, drinking in a corner and scowling at anyone who entered, Mralki's son Erik sweeping up in the corner, and a few of the local farmers. And in another corner, he caught the stench of filthy silver and treachery. Heddic Bog-Trotter's face was about as untrustworthy as his smell, watery close-set eyes above a narrow nose and knife-slash of a mouth, thinning hair and an unlikely silver sword at his side—he did not seem the warrior type.<p>

When he caught sight of Vilkas, his eyes widened: though they had never met before, the wolf armor was distinctive, as was the lupine grin currently on his face as he sat down in a chair next to Bog-Trotter, a dagger out and pressed into his side before the man could react.

"What do you want?" Bog-Trotter asked in a quavering voice.

"Information," Vilkas said shortly, "And you're going to cooperate quietly, or you'll enjoy a dagger in your traitorous guts. And don't lie to me—I can smell a lie."

The man nodded eagerly, and the words tumbled from his mouth so quickly that he could barely keep them in order. "Yes! Yes! Anything you want to know! Just please, don't hurt me, don't hurt me!"

Vilkas, disgusted with the man's cowardice, wondered what use he could possibly have been to the Silver Hand. Maybe an accounts man. He was certainly useless as a warrior, as terrified of a bit of pain as he was. "Did you tell the Silver Hand that the Companions would be headed for Dustman's Cairn?"

"Yes," Heddic squeaked.

"What else have you told them?" he asked, and pressed the dagger in a little harder. He could feel the flesh dimple beneath the man's clothes, and heard him squeak again, this time in pain. Blood seeped through the cloth of his tunic, and his eyes bugged out even wider.

"Not much, I swear. I swear!" he pleaded, "I only know what I've told Skjor, that you would be going after these things. I don't know much, I promise!"

"And Bern Golden-Fingers," Vilkas said, "What do you know of this man and his dealings with your…_comrades_?"

"Just that he supports the cause!" Heddic whispered hurriedly, "He's a very wealthy man, and he hates all non-humans."

"We are men," Vilkas said flatly.

"Not to _him_," Heddic replied, "To him, you're all animals, to be put down along with the elves and the lizards. He's been funding the Silver Hand and the Vigilants quietly for some time now, and I know most of his money comes from trade. Legal and illegal. He's got a side business in selling…parts."

"What kind of parts?" Vilkas demanded, twisting the dagger.

"Bones and skins," Heddic said, beginning to sweat heavily. He wiped his shining face with one hand and fixed Vilkas with pleading eyes. "Skulls. Elves' ears. Teeth. Some mages find them useful. Some collectors find them…desireable. Please, you're hurting me!"

"I have your scent now," Vilkas said, fixing the man with his most imperious stare, "If I ever, _ever_ find that you've sold us out again, I will hunt you down, and I will make you very sorry."

"I promise! I won't ever betray you again!" Heddic squealed. "Tell Skjor how sorry I am!"

Vilkas would have sneered at the man, but found himself too disgusted to do even that, instead giving in the the urge to flee from the inn and the stench of silver and treachery, which in the end smelled so similar, the smell of fear roiling from the man, thick enough to choke him. He felt disgusted just by having touched the man, as though his stench would wear off on him and taint him somehow. "If I hear one hint—_one_—that you haven't kept your side of the bargain," he said, "You'll find your throat ripped out and your body thrown to the wolves. This I swear."

"I promise! I promise!" Heddic pleaded, and Vilkas saw that he had pissed himself.

"Get out of my sight, you bloody _worm_," Vilkas spat, and stood quickly, striding out of the inn under the curious gaze of Mralki. He had no idea how Skjor had dealt with this man without killing him. The urge to go back and snap his neck was difficult to fight, and so Vilkas ran almost all of the way back to Whiterun, in an attempt to burn away the fury. It worked, only but partially.

When he finally returned to Whiterun, he made the decision to go to Ysolda. He had spent some time with her earlier in the year after she had begged him to bring her back a mammoth tusk from one of the Companions' hunts so that she could learn trading secrets from the Khajit caravans who occasionally camped outside of Whiterun's gates. When he had given it to her, asking nothing in return, she had invited him into her home and her bed. She was a pretty woman, with a pleasant voice and an easy way about her, good business sense, and a small home in Whiterun. He couldn't have said why he stopped going to see her, but lost interest after a few months, as he tended to do with women. Now, as he found himself on her doorstep with a bottle of Black-Briar Mead, he thought: _this is the kind of woman you should be pursuing_. A beauty rooted in one spot, without a death wish. A woman unscarred by battle, who trusted him without question, who didn't challenge him at every turn. And so he knocked on her door.

She opened after a few sharp knocks, dressed in a loosely wrapped robe and nothing else, obviously woken from her slumber. Tousled hair hung over her lovely blue eyes. "Vilkas!" she exclaimed, surprised, though her voice was still rough from sleep, eyes hooded beneath long lashes as she looked him up and down and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"It's been a long time, Ysolda," he said. "I missed you."

"Mmm," she said, with a sly smile. "Missed _me_, or missed my bed?"

"Both of you," he said, and she laughed.

"Well, at the very least, you're doing a good job of making it up to me. Black-Briar mead? I'm impressed." She gave him another teasing smile as she stepped from the lintel of the door and back into the shadows of her home. "Come in, then, my friend, and you can become reacquainted with both of us."

And he nudged the door closed behind him as he embraced her. She surrendered in his arms, kissed him eagerly, soft lips parting beneath his to tease his tongue with hers. She murmured encouragement, a low hum in her throat, running her hand over one muscular shoulder and down his back before pulling away. "Not in the doorway," she gasped, taking his hand, and led him up the stairs to her bedroom.

Later that night, he lay awake in her tiny bed as she slumbered quietly beside him, one arm thrown over her face, full breasts exposed. He examined her sleeping form and wondered what the hell was wrong with him. It had been—nice. Familiar. She made all the right noises at the right times, sharp gasps and breathy little moans, and her soft body was pliant and supple beneath him as she wrapped her legs around his back, pulling him closer. But there had been—something—missing, and he couldn't figure out what it was. He had enjoyed himself as he ever had, and she had enjoyed him, but the fact remained that though he had shuddered atop her as she cried out beneath him, it had only been just that—_nice_. There was no sense of danger, no fire. She gave, but did not take. He had known exactly what would happen before it did. She gave herself wholeheartedly, softly, lovingly, and he had been bored. He rubbed his hand over his eyes and groaned.

_What the hell is _wrong_ with you?_

In the dark, in the arms of a beautiful woman, he had no answer.

* * *

><p>The journey back to Jorrvaskr, for Sigrid, was a strange one. Even when she slept, uneasily, she could still hear the echo of the Greybeards' voice in her ears and feel the echo of the intense emotion that had swept through her as she stood between them. She could not deny that their Words had woken some resonance deep within her, something that her soul recognized and claimed as its own. While she might have her misgivings about the rest of the hero business, she could no longer deny that the Greybeards were right: she <em>was<em> Dragonborn. To deny that would be to deny the surest, truest feeling that she had ever known, since the time she was a small girl who loved her father and missed her mother very much. She barely noticed the road before her as she walked from Ivarstead back down the mountain towards Whiterun. It was almost too much to wrap her mind around: before she had been able to tell herself that perhaps the Greybeards had made a mistake, but now that blindfold had been ripped from her eyes.

This did not make her any more comfortable with her reality. At first she had been furious: _why me? I never asked for this_, _it's not bloody fair_. Then she had thoughts such as: if I do the right thing, please make it not true. _Please, please_, though how could she pray to Talos or Ysmir if _she_ was Ysmir, the Dragon of the North? The irony of praying to herself to release herself from this strange destiny could not escape her, and she laughed, though it was a sour, bitter laugh.

In the end, her practical nature won out. Sigrid was not one to sulk about anything in her life, and though she now faced a problem she couldn't look full in the face, fight and beat into submission, she knew certain things were true: she had a dragon's soul, the dragons were returning, and if what the name that the dragon Sahloknir had proclaimed was true, then Alduin himself was involved in this somehow. She shuddered, and as she rounded the corner, she remembered the tales her father had told her of the World-Eater. The sudden thought came to her: _I'm not going to live through this. There's no way I can survive, even if I succeed in stopping the dragons from coming back_. This went far beyond dragons and the destruction of Snowsbranch. How could one woman, however tough and resourceful she might be, stand against the might of that terrible force?

There was a strangely freeing aspect in that thought. If she were well and truly doomed, why fight the strands of fate? She could try, but she could feel her death lurking 'round the corner, ever since the Greybeards had named her Dovahkiin. When she knew what she faced, she felt no fear. "I suppose," she said to a rabbit that ran way from her in startled terror, "It could be worse. At this rate I'm practically guaranteed an entry to Sovngarde." Perhaps she would even see her father again. Perhaps she would meet her mysterious mother.

"Stop being so bloody morbid," she muttered, concentrating now on putting one foot after the other. "All you know for sure is that some old men in robes recognized _something_ in you. The rest, you don't know for sure. And when it happens, it will happen." And then Sigrid sighed, as she could see the spire of Dragonsreach in the distance. "And it's already driven you mad. Look at you, woman, talking to yourself like that priest of Talos in Whiterun."

At the gates of the city, the guard smirked at her and said, "Oh, if it isn't the newest member of the Companions. What d'you do, fetch their mead?"

She was too tired to even respond, and merely curled her lip in disdain. As long as he opened the gates, she didn't care. The sun was just beginning to rise and Whiterun had a welcoming glow to its buildings, though that could have been her imagination after spending so much time and energy in the alien stone chill of High Hrothgar and the stinking dungeon of Ustengrav. She did truly love this time, before the crowds began to throng the marketplace. It would be easy to sneak back to Jorrvaskr, untroubled, and perhaps to grab an hour or two of sleep before facing the day. Unfortunately, as she entered the market, she saw another figure loping towards the steps that led up to the Wind District: Vilkas, looking distinctly…rumpled, and without armor, dressed only in his tunic and breeches.

When he caught sight of her, his eyes widened, then narrowed almost immediately.

"Long night?" she asked, grinning, as she widened her stride to catch up with him.

"None of your damn business," he said, and walked away from her, up the stairs to their home. _When had she started thinking of it as home?_

There were any number of things she wanted to ask him, but could not think of a way to say it. She simply could not speak of Ustengrav and the Greybeards to anyone yet, particularly him: it was something too private to share, and she did not think he would understand why it was something that she had needed to do alone. And ah, she could tell that he was furious: the tense line of his shoulders and the sharp set of his mouth said that much for her. Instead, she followed him up the stairs and around the loop of the Gildergreen and said exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time, as she was wont to do, reaching out to touch his shoulder and stop him. "Are you really going to act like a spoiled child for the rest of the time that I'm in Jorrvaskr?"

He turned on her then, whirling to face her, his hands grabbing her around the wrist. "This isn't—! You don't _do_ things like that, this isn't how being a Companion works. You must be trustworthy! I have to know you'll be at my back if I need you, as I would be at yours! That's what _shield-siblings_ are for, _sister_. For all Kodlak seems to think highly of you, you've certainly not proven yourself to me."

She wrenched her wrist from his grasp and slapped his hand away. "Come off it. You've never had to do something on your own, something you couldn't tell the Harbinger about? You're lying if you say no, and I know how you feel about _that_."

"That doesn't bloody matter!" Vilkas snarled, "At least I told _someone_ I was going first, instead of vanishing into the night. You could have been dead, for all I knew."

"Oh," Sigrid said, and smiled suddenly—the smile only a little bit mean—moving a step closer, just inside the appropriate bounds, "Don't tell me you were _worried_ about me?"

"You can go to Oblivion," he said, fury-filled face turning away. He stepped around her abruptly, taking the final steps to the mead-hall two at a time.

"I'm not done with you!" she yelled after him. "This isn't over! You _will_ listen to me and treat me as a goddamn equal, not an irresponsible girl!"

Instead of responding, he turned again, and went into the mead hall.

She sat down on the steps of Jorrvaskr, suddenly feeling very tired.

Eventually, she gathered herself up and went inside, though he was by now long-gone, and she wasn't sure whether she was relieved or not. Tilma was beginning to set out plates of food for breakfast, and so Sigrid slouched into one of the chairs, tiredly forking bacon and potatoes onto one of them. The feeling of exhaustion did not abate: a combination of the revelations of the preceeding days and the reunion that had gone—very badly—weighing down on her at once. If only she could just get him to fight with her, she had the feeling it would have been better. They were not among those for whom words were a way of settling disputes. The thought made her smile, and she resolved to anger him into it on the training grounds at some point, maybe even before he'd had the time to cool off.

It was with this consolation, of bacon and the promise of a good fist-fight, that Farkas found her. The big man loped into the room as totally nonplussed as ever, and sat down at the table across from her. She met his steady gaze as he poured her a cup of coffee. "Good morning, Farkas."

"Mornin'," he replied companionably, stealing a piece of her bacon. "You're still alive, I see."

"Quite alive," she said. "Sorry to disappoint."

Farkas grinned, "Talked to my brother, I see?"

"He's…not very happy with me," she said, over the edge of the coffee mug.

A laugh; "A _small_ understatement, shield-sister."

"I didn't have a choice about what I did," she started to say.

To her surprise, he held up a hand. "You don't need to explain to me, Sigrid."

"No?"

"We all have our reasons," he said. "I know you wouldn't have left my brother in Solitude without a good one."

"How…do you know?" she asked.

He met her eyes, and said simply, "I have a good sense about people. You, I like. My brother's slow to trust and quick to anger. Doesn't mean he's always right, for all he's the smarter of us."

She didn't know how to react to that, and looked down into her coffee again. Instead, she smiled, slowly, and left it at that. He nodded and then they returned to eating their breakfast in silence. By the time she was finished eating and had had two mugs of the hot beverage, she felt much better, though she had not seen Vilkas emerge from the living quarters. After all of the emotion of the preceding days, it was strangely comforting just to eat in silence with a friendly face who didn't ask too many questions of her. Once she was finished with her last sweetroll, she pushed the chair back, about to stand.

"By the way, Skjor was looking for you before, he just got back. Talk to him before you do anything else," Farkas said.

"Seen him today?"

"The training grounds, I think."

He was indeed on the training grounds, seated at the table beneath the awning that overlooked the dirt and gravel practice area, looking uncharacteristically studious as he squinted at a book that appeared to have accounts written in it. He looked up when he heard her coming, and nodded sharply. "Ah, there you are. I see you've made it back in one piece."

"Everyone seems to be… so shocked," Sigrid said dryly. "You wanted to see me?"

After looking around quickly to see whether anyone else remained in the grounds to overhear. There was no-one, but still he lowered his voice. "Yes. I have something a little different planned, this time. But it's not for everyone to hear. Meet me in the Underforge tonight. We will speak more."

"The Underforge?"

"Ah. I forget you've never seen it. It's beneath the Skyforge, where Eorlund works. The door is hidden, but I will show you the way."

Sigrid nodded sharply, wondering what on earth he could possibly have that the other Companions could not hear, from Vilkas' furious reaction to her flight, she had thought that they had a policy of total honesty. In her time with the Companions, especially during her training, she had gotten to know Skjor a bit: he was extremely tough but fair, the kind of commander she'd liked to have back when she was fighting in large battles in Cyrodiil. A bit short and never much given to noticing the newer members of the Companions. She'd spoken with him alone only enough times to count on both hands. And now he was singling her out in such a way? But as with the rest of her life, she would confront it as it came. After she took her leave with Skjor, Sigrid slouched into the Living Quarters, into a spare bed, and promptly drifted off to sleep, still fully clothed.

* * *

><p>He spent the rest of the day polishing his armor, beating the stuffing out of one of the training mannequins, and counting off hundreds of push-ups in the courtyard. At the end, he felt a bit more like himself. As night fell, he made his way back down to the Living Quarters to put together a plan to put an end to Bern Golden-Fingers. As he passed through the quarters on the way to his room, he caught sight of Sigrid, passed out on one of the spare Jorrvaskr cots. She had tucked her head under a pillow, and armorless, she was curled up in the fetal position, long legs and feet hanging off the edge of the bed. She looked so patently ridiculous that he snorted, amused despite himself. As he moved down the corridor, he wondered whether she wasn't right, whether he wasn't judging her unfairly. When actually dealing with her, she did not seem the flighty sort…<p>

"Vilkas," Skjor said, surprising him out of his thoughts.

"Yes?"

"This is urgent," the man said, "From Kodlak's mouth himself. And since you've proven so good at rescues, this absolutely can't wait. Take your brother to Greenspring Hollow. Bandits have taken a local woman hostage, and they've threatened to kill her within the hour unless a ransom is brought. Go there, and kill all of them."

There was something—off. A strange scent to Skjor that he had never caught before, and could not recognize. When he had ceased his transformations, his keen sense of smell occasionally became more muddled than it had been when he'd been changing into the beast-form regularly. Still sensitive, but sometimes harder to pick out individual scents, especially when he knew a man as well as he knew Skjor, and the overwhelming familiarity of him overrode everything else. "You can't handle this?" he asked.

"I've other things that need to be done tonight," Skjor said, with a wolfish smile. "Go now, Vilkas. I don't want this woman's life on our hands."

"As you will," Vilkas nodded, and went to dress in his armor again. A sudden thought occurred to him: could it have been the scent of a lie?

But that was ridiculous, and he knew it. Skjor had never lied to him before. There was no reason to start now, after twenty-five winters. "Farkas!" Vilkas said, "Time to go."

* * *

><p>When Sigrid woke, it was nighttime, and Jorrvaskr seemed strangely quiet and empty. Normally it hummed with activity, even at night: the Companions came back at all hours of the night as they finished jobs or returned from the Bannered Mare or the Drunken Huntsman. Tonight, it seemed very still as she crept through the living quarters, dressed in her armor, just in case she needed it. The night air hit her clear and chill as she left the mead hall, taking a moment to look up at Masser in its full, red glory, Secunda shadowed in a half phase, the green and purple aurora crackling behind them making for an impressively beautiful picture. But no artist could ever fully convey the terrible beauty of Skyrim's skies, its plains. She smiled: no matter what happened after this, it was good to be home, if only for these familiar vistas. As quietly as possible, Sigrid made her way to Eorlund's forge. Skjor stood by the bottom ledge, near the stairs leading up to the Skyforge itself.<p>

Under the touch of his hand, a stone door slid open with a grinding noise of rock upon rock. "Are you prepared?" he said in his hoarse voice.

"What is this place?" she asked, looking down a dark tunnel carved from the stone itself.

"Here's all you need to know," he replied. "Jorrvaskr is the oldest building in Whiterun. The Skyforge was here long before it was. And the Underforge taps an ancient magic that is older than men or elves. We bring you here to make you stronger, new blood." Skjor's smile was full of teeth, and for a moment she wondered whether she wasn't making a mistake, following him into the unknown dark. "Now let's move."

* * *

><p>Farkas peered around the clearing of Greenshade, but saw only a single, lone troll, which roared angrily and charged at them. He cut it down easily, with barely an effort, and then looked at Vilkas in confusion. "I don't see any bandits."<p>

"There are no bandits," Vilkas agreed. "No woman, either."

"I don't get it," Farkas said.

Vilkas nudged the troll's corpse with one booted foot, and frowned. "Skjor obviously wanted us out of Jorrvaskr this evening—but why? What was he hiding?"

"Skjor wouldn't lie to us," Farkas said.

"I think he just did," Vilkas replied, "And I think we'd better go back, _now_."

* * *

><p>As Sigrid followed Skjor through the door and down the tunnel, she kept one hand on the hilt of her sword, unsure of what was about to happen. Whatever she was expecting, however, it was certainly not this: a large, low-ceilinged room, lit by the glow of candles. In the center of the room stood the twisted wolfish frame that she had seen Farkas shift to, though this werewolf was smaller, no less deadly, but not as monstrous. It looked at her with amber-colored eyes, unlupine and strangely familiar.<p>

"I would hope you recognize Aela, even in this form," Skjor said, as he saw her curious examination, "She's agreed to be your forebear."

"My forebear?" Sigrid asked.

"The one whose blood brings you to the world of the beast," Skjor explained. "In the Circle, we can trace our blood-lineage in a family tree of sorts. Kodlak was my forebear, and I Aela's, and the forebears are recorded all the way back to Terrfyg, who was the first to bring us this power."

"So—if I accept this—this power—you'll be my grandda?" Sigrid asked, unable to keep the wisecrack from slipping from her lips.

"Don't be a smart-arse," Skjor said, "This is a very serious thing to take upon yourself, a very powerful ability. The Circle—myself, Aela, and the brothers—do this in secret because Kodlak is too busy trying to throw away this great gift we've been granted. He thinks it a curse, but in truth—we've been blessed. How can something that gives this kind of prowess be a curse? So we take matters into our own hands. To reach the heights of the Companions, you must join with us in the shared blood of the wolf."

Aela, in her wolf form, growled her agreement, or possibly her encouragement. It was eerie to watch her, still as anything, though the great, beastly frame was unnaturally bound in that room. She would have looked less terrifying running over the Whiterun plains, somehow. The stillness was uncanny. Sigrid took a deep breath and weighed her options; her first instinct was to refuse, but something tempered her quick reaction and she actually considered it. Taking the beast-blood would most likely prevent her from ascending to Sovngarde after her death. But on the other hand…a terrible idea seized hold of her. If she took a beast's soul as her own, would it drive out the dragon's blood in her? Could she escape this terrible destiny after all? It was worth a try. She looked up at Skjor again, mouth set, determined, though she thought, _Sigrid, if ever you were an idiot, it's now. This is possibly the worst idea you've ever had. _And then: _But if I have a chance of escaping this…_

Skjor met her eyes and nodded. "Are you prepared to join your spirit with the beast world, friend?"

She took a deep breath, and said much more levelly than she felt, "I'm ready."

"Very well. Remove your clothing and armor—no, it's just for conveniences' sake. I cannot tell you how many shirts I've ruined this way."

Sigrid complied, first unbuckling her steel cuirass, and the backpiece of her armor, then slipping from her clothes. She did not normally feel self conscious about nakedness, and tonight was no different, especially since Skjor did not look upon her with desire or anything except cool interest in the proceedings, the ritual. This was not about bodies and nakedness, only the magic and the blood. As she stepped towards the stone fountain, Skjor moved around it and took Aela's fur-covered arm in his own, and slashed her wrist open. The wolf snarled in pain, but allowed him to do it, allowed him to hold her arm over the lip of the stone bowl so that her burning blood dripped from her wrist, filling it for what seemed like forever. Sigrid watched as, after enough blood to drink had filled it, Aela snatched her arm back and lapped at the blood herself, to stop the flow.

"Drink," Skjor said. "And make sure you don't stint. You don't want to know what happens to those who ingest the blood, but not enough of it."

Taking a deep breath, she cupped her hands and dipped them into the fountain. The blood was still warm, not boiling like dragon's blood, but warmer than a human's, especially after much of it had been sitting in the cold stone while she drained her wrist. Sigrid brought her cupped hands to her mouth, and drank, the viscous liquid salty and metallic. She had tasted blood before, mostly her own, but this did not taste like human blood—there was magic in it, and even untutored she could taste it, redolent of woods and the moon, of the hunt, of claws and death. Sigrid shuddered but gamely drank her fill, scooping up more of it under the watchful eyes of Skjor and the wolf. Her hands and face were stained with it now, and when she had choked down the entire fountain, finally, she licked her lips. Nausea rocked her, and she fell to the floor, gasping. Something was happening within her, something she could not describe in words. It felt like her very soul was warring with itself, as her body shifted around her, her bones melting and cracking. The pain was excrutiating, unlike anything she had ever felt before. Gasping, she tried to choke out, "What's happening to me?" but her mouth had shifted, elongating, and she found that her still-human tongue was only cut to ribbons by teeth that had suddenly extended to fangs. She could feel her organs rearranging themselves, and that was finally what drove her over the edge, into the waiting arms of unconsciousness.

The blackness was a relief. She threw herself into it.

* * *

><p>When Sigrid woke, everything was different. She was unused to the balance of her new legs, and when she stood up, she fell over again. Though she could see, her vision was different: sharper in some ways, out of focus in others. And still she felt blind. The world was a rush of information, different smells and noises overwhelming her, and she could make no sense of it at all. She scrabbled to her feet on the stone and turned, running through the secret exit of the underforge and out onto the plains. Her emotions felt flattened, simpler. Thoughts did not come in words so much as in images, flashes of terror, of hunger. She could feel the grass beneath her paws and the wind in her fur, the moon anchoring her. She ran and ran until exhausted, until the pain returned for her, claiming her for its own.<p>

Everything went dark.

* * *

><p>When she woke again, she lay on the ground, curled up in a ball, human and naked. She had no idea where she was: some kind of forest? The moons were still out, so it was the same evening. Everything hurt. She could see that, on her arm, flickering patches of fur swam up from her skin and disappeared again. The sight made her roll over onto her side and throw up again and again, the vomit spewing from between teeth that alternated between normal molars, and vicious wolf incisors. Someone was standing over her, saying something. Eventually the ringing in her ears subsided enough so that she could make it out.<p>

"Are you awake?" Aela asked. "I was starting to think you might never come back. Yours was not an easy transformation. But you're still alive, so congratulations."

"Thanks… I think," Sigrid said, and groaned. "I feel like I've been run over by a mammoth." _A mistake. This was a mistake. What were you thinking to truck with magic so lightly?_

"That's fairly common after the first time," Aela said, "And with you, especially… it's not usually like that, not that difficult, anyway—odd. But we haven't the time to discuss: you must get up and dress yourself. Here, I've brought you your armor," she added, tossing a heavy pack to Sigrid, who caught it. "We even have a celebration planned for you, to welcome you to the fold."

As Sigrid dressed herself, hurriedly, hopping around on one foot as she wriggled into her smallclothes and breaches, she asked: "Is there a cure?"

Aela looked at her in surprise and the faintest hint of disgust. "Cure? Hah!" she laughed. "You're sounding like the old man." A regretful pause. "I… shouldn't say that. I love Kodlak. I respect and follow him. But he's wrong on this. It's no curse. We're made into the greatest hunters in the land. If he's worried about some mead-filling afterlife in Sovngarde, he's free to pursue it, but I'll take the glories of the hunt right here."

"It didn't feel very glorious to me," Sigrid said, as she buckled her armor and slid her hands into her gauntlets, her feet into their boots.

"That's just because you had a rough first transformation," Aela said, waving her hand dismissively. "It's not usually that bad, and it's always easier after the first time. Are you ready?"

"Yes," said Sigrid.

"Good. There's a pack of werewolf hunters camped nearby, at Gallows Rock. The Silver Hand. I think you've met them before?"

"Yes. With Farkas."

"Well, then you'll enjoy this: we're going to slaughter them. All of them," Aela said, and grinned, broadly. "Lead on. Skjor's already scouting ahead."

Though her legs still felt shaky and strange things were still happening with her body, Sigrid drew her sword and moved quietly, quickly towards the fortress. Gallows Rock looked as grim as its name, a crumbling one-story stone affair of the sort that so often populated the wilds of Skyrim. She thanked Talos that she was gradually recovering her strength, for as soon as she snuck around the edge of the gate, they were set upon by four members of the Silver Hand, who'd been sitting around campfires, warming their hands. Sigrid met one of them blade-to-blade, though his silver sword gave way beneath her steel. _Daft material for a weapon_, she thought, as she flicked her wrist to bring the sword up again, then down, crashing through his skull. Another man rushed her from the side, and she met him head-on with her shield, her foot lashing out to kick him in the kneecaps. He went down, and as he fell she cut his throat. She looked up and saw Aela on the battlements, moving with a feral grace, almost a dance, as she met the two archers above them, a flurry of daggers and blood. Sigrid sighed: though she was effective, she could never look so beautiful while fighting. Especially now, when her foot seemed to be turning into a paw. _Stop that!_ she ordered it, with mixed results. One long claw remained, until it too shifted back to a human nail.

Aela lept down from the battlements, landing gracefully on her feet like a cat. The two women went cautiously through the main door, blades drawn, and found themselves in a wide, empty room with a low ceiling, lit by torchlight, with a cooking spit over a fire and some chests and supplies thrown 'round at random. It looked as though whoever had been there had left in a hurry, and blocked the way behind them with a gate. Sigrid went to it and pulled the chain, and the blades of it fell with a hiss of well-oiled metal.

"Look at that! Cowards must have locked the place down after Skjor charged in," Aela said, "You can taste the fear."

Strangely, she almost thought she could: some extra scent in the air redolent of sweat and shivering blood, but before she could parse it out the smell faded, and she could feel her ears growing higher. Hurriedly, so that Aela would not see, she went first down the long stairway, into the darkness, sneaking into another wide room filled with pillars. Two more members of the Silver Hand jumped to their feet at the sound of her footsteps. One of them went down instantly, Aela's arrow in his eye, twitching on the floor as he died. Sigrid fought back another wave of nausea as she slew the other, quickly, without emotion. The women split up to examine the room, searching for signs of more Silver Hand, or for Skjor.

Sigrid opened a closet and her eyes widened: within it, a dead werewolf hung by its ankle from the ceiling, bloodied and beaten. On a small stool below it, a number of torture instruments, clearly silver and still stained with dark brown blood.

"There's a dead one, isn't there?" Aela asked, as she came over and frowned at the body. Thought so—but nobody we know, by the smell. Some can't separate the animal from themselves. Go feral. This poor sod could have been anyone."

"How common _is_ this?" Sigrid asked.

"The torture, or werewolves?"

"Werewolves."

"More than you'd think," Aela shrugged. "Especially amongst hunters. _They_ appreciate Lord Hircine's gift. But—enough chatter. We should keep moving."

"Yes," said Sigrid. No time to think, no time to process what she had done to herself. Her stomach roiled again—something was still moving within it—and to hide her discomfort, she opened the wooden door on the far side of the room, revealing a hall that curved around into darkness. With a hiss, skeevers threw themselves at the women. Sigrid stamped a booted foot down on the head of one of them, kicked the other away from her. Aela fired one arrow into the third, then stopped to pull it free, returning the bloody weapon to her quiver. The hall led to yet another room in the interminable honeycomb of this fortress. Where was Skjor? Sigrid wondered, uneasy, as they were attacked again, by two women and a man, one of them screaming, "I'm going to put you down!"

"Bastard!" Aela yelled, as one of them landed a cut with a silver dagger upon her arm. She whirled, and an arrow sprouted from his neck as if by magic; almost instantly she'd redrawn the bow, firing another arrow at the woman, who shrieked in fury as she went down with the shaft rhough her heart. Sigrid found the other man not much challenge: he turned to run, and she cut him down.

"Nice work," Aela said approvingly. "These _men_ are more animals than we are. And they deserve only butchery."

"Aye," said Sigrid, remembering the dead werewolf hanging in the closet. They found themselves in another long hall, filled with barrels of preserved food and a wagon turned on its side, jail cells lining the other side of the room, some of them filled with the dead bodies of werewolves, others with their grates hanging open. The stairs led to another dead end, and a wooden door, which she shoved open with her shoulder. She and Aela overwhelmed the man closest to the door, Aela's dagger in his neck and Sigrid's sword chopping into his side, and then they spread out to pick off the rest of the Silver Hand—Sigrid ran up a set of stone stairs and an arrow slapped into her armor, bouncing off and falling to the ground with a clatter.

"Shor have mercy on you!" the Silver Hand archer yelled, as he fumbled for his dagger, and then: "Aaargh!" as she stabbed him. As Aela efficiently killed the rest, Sigrid moved quickly over the balcony, searching for stragglers. Instead she found the bloody body of an Imperial woman laying on a table, and shuddered. She came down the stairs again, feeling the exhaustion setting in, and watched as Aela slit the throat of a man who'd been hiding behind the stockpile, holding his breath as if by doing so he could escape the keen senses of the Huntress. Aela let his corpse drop with a snarl, and turned to Sigrid as she led her from the room. "We're getting closer—I can smell it. Be careful, their leader is a tricky one. They call him 'the Skinner.' I don't think I need to tell you why."

As they opened the door, Sigrid saw another wide room with an altar in the center, with steps leading up to it. Skulls and bloody body parts were strewn every-which way. On the floor, surrounded by five Silver Hand members, along with a large, muscular Orc in fur armor, his fangs extended over her lip in a permanent snarl, was another dead body. The orc looked up as the Companions entered and growled, "Well, come to join your little _friend_? He wasn't so tough in the end!" and he laughed, a terrible, nasty laugh.

"You take Krev!" Aela exclaimed, "I'll keep the rest off of your back."

It was a quick battle: though Sigrid was exhausted, she faced off against Krev with every last ounce of her strength, meeting the orc sword-to-sword, using every dirty trick she had in the book to wear him down. In the end, it was a sharp kick in the bollocks that did it (did orcs even _have_ bollocks? her weary brain asked, with a hysterical laugh, well, it seemed to work anyway!), driving his armor up into uncomfortably tender bits. As the orc dropped to the ground with a curse, Sigrid wielded her sword with both hands, slicing through his neck. Krev hit the floor with a liquid gurgle.

"Victory is yours! I submit!" one of the remaining Silver Hand shrieked, as Sigrid turned and plunged her sword through his back, his spine. Only then did she stop to take a breath and try to concentrate on keeping her ears from growing furry points.

"Bastards…somehow they managed to kill Skjor!" Aela exclaimed, rushing to his side and crouching next to him, feeling frantically for a pulse that did not exist. She laid her head upon his cold body, hands clutching his sides. "He was one of the strongest we had, but numbers can overwhelm. He should not have come without a Shield-Brother!" The rage mixed with grief in her voice and a howl broke from her, an unearthly noise that was neither woman nor wolf. Sigrid backed away from her, feeling as though she was witnessing something she had no right to see. The animal in Aela had never been more evident, as the unnatural shriek went on and on. Finally, she took a breath, and looked Sigrid straight in the eye.

"Get out of here. I'm going to make sure we get the last of them, and see if there's any information to be gotten out of the bodies," Aela said, still crouched next to Skjor's body, rocking back and forth on her heels in a keening grief. "Find me again when we both return to Whiterun. You and I have work to do. We will be avenged! The Silver Hand will tremble at our sight." And she turned away from Sigrid, head in her hands, next to the still body of her companion.

As Sigrid backed away from the terrible scene, she opened the barred door at the edge of the room, she followed a curving corridor around and found herself back in the room where she and Aela had first entered the fortress. A loan Silver Hand was inspecting the room for signs of intruders, and looked up sharply when she heard Sigrid coming. "Time to end this little game!" the woman yelled, drawing her silver sword.

Sigrid barely had the strength to fight her off. Her sword moved sluggishly as she went to meet her, but the woman slashed her arm, sliding past Sigrid's guard. She stumbled, and thought: _this might be your end. A common _bandit. The Silver Hand raised her sword, ready to bring it down on Sigrid's head. _NO! _"_FUS ROH DAH!"_ burst from her mouth, that now-familiar concussive force bowling the woman over in a crumpled heap. It gave Sigrid just enough time to throw herself on her, beating her face in with a rock and her fists, a second wind born of desperate energy, sheer will to survive. The woman went still, and Sigrid staggered to her feet again. Whatever had happened to her this night, she still possessed the dragon's soul. The dragon's blood. She could not tell if she felt despair or relief.

_What did I do?_ she asked herself again, as she staggered up the stairs and into the fresh air again. _What did I do?_

And the moonlight rolled over her.

_Oh…no…_

* * *

><p>By the time the brothers returned to Jorrvaskr, they found that they were already too late. Aela, Skjor, and Sigrid were gone, and no one knew where they were. All Athis knew was that he had not seen Aela all day, and then Farkas had remembered that Skjor had been looking for Sigrid earlier, but did not know why or where they were going. Though he had no idea <em>why<em> this would be, Vilkas had a foreboding feeling in the pit of his stomach about the entire affair. Skjor had never lied to him before, and to bring the new-blood into it... Looking up at his brother, he said, "Let's split up and look for them, eh? I'll take the road towards Valtheim and you double back around Whiterun and see if there's any sign of them."

"Right," Farkas said.

Unsure of what he was looking for, Vilkas decided to follow his nose and his gut. While it would be easier as a wolf, he'd vowed to keep his promise to Kodlak, and had yet to break it. And so he set out down the road, his way lit by the bright sheen of the moons, ill at ease. The unrest within the Companions' ranks had never sit well with him, and he resolved that if he figured out what was happening he would make more of an effort not to contribute further towards it. And then he laughed, sourly. That kind of bargaining never worked: whatever ill had been done this night would not be easily reversed.

Suddenly, silhouetted in the distance, a figure lurched into view, limping down the road. The smell was…wrong. Not fully human, or elf or even orc. It was the stench of werewolf, new-blooded and queasy, the smell of werewolf and blood and fear. He broke into a run and closed the distance between them, and as he did, saw that the figure was Sigrid. Sigrid, exhausted and bloodied, with patches of fur rippling over her skin in the light of the moon and fading beneath her human frame again. She looked at him with tired eyes, which changed their shape from their slight almond tilt to the ferocious yellow round of the wolf, bleeding wounds on her arms and legs. Somehow she had managed to stagger home from wherever she had been, in this state. If he hadn't been—frankly—worried about her appearance, he would have admired her resolve.

"…_what did you do?_"

"Please," she said, the words distorted as her mouth morphed into a wolf's snout, and then back again. "I can't take any of your—usual way. Just—help me get back to Jorrvaskr and leave me alone. I'm having trouble walking. My feet won't stay still now. It wasn't so bad in the fortress, in the candlelight, but now in the light of the moon I—I can't stop it. What's _happening_?"

"I'll help you if you tell me what the hell is going on," Vilkas demanded, as she threw her arm over his shoulder, using him to support her weight. "Of course I wouldn't fucking leave you here." _As frustrating as you are. As much as you might deserve it._

"Skjor told me to come to the Underforge tonight," Sigrid said, and then gasped as her teeth lengthened, shortened again.

Vilkas' stomach sank. "Skjor. Did. What." he said, voice soft and deadly.

She stopped walking then, though did not remove her hold, and looked at him in surprise. "I thought you knew," she whispered. "He said that the Circle did this in secret, because Kodlak would not approve. You're part of the Circle, aren't you?"

"I am, but—Farkas and I have not taken the beast-form since Kodlak requested we cease the transformations until he could find a cure. We would never bring new members into this curse. Whatever Skjor told you…" Vilkas shook his head, shifted his shoulders to adjust her arm so that she could walk more comfortably. "It was a lie. Or a half-truth, at best. Once, this was the initiation that all Companions of the Circle took. But no longer. _Where is he?"_

Sigrid looked down at the ground. "He's dead."

"What? How?"

"The Skinner," she said, stumbling again.

It was almost too much to take in at once. Skjor, dead? The man who had taken on thousands of Aldmeri soldiers with only Kodlak at his side? A man he had somehow just assumed would live forever, felled by a common butcher? He was secretly relieved to have a problem that needed immediate attention, just so he could ignore having to process that for a little longer. The grief of the betrayal and the loss would have to wait. Instead of asking further questions, Vilkas said, "Look—let me carry you back. We'll be faster, and you need to see a healer. Or at the very least drink a healing potion." She was an infuriating woman, but he remembered the pain of the first transformation, though his had been nowhere near as bad as this. He could not leave anyone to such suffering.

"If you wanted to get me back into bed," she managed to gasp between winces as he lifted her into his arms, "You could have just—asked—you know."

"Always a smart-arse remark, huh?"

"Feels like my insides are getting all twisted," Sigrid said, "At least making smart-arse remarks allows me to—ow—ignore it for a bit."

"Keep them coming, then," he started to say, but when there was no response and her body went limp, he realized she'd lost consciousness. He sighed and continued the walk back to Whiterun, shifting her weight so that he could carry her more easily, thankful for all of the years that Jergen had made the brothers haul heavy sandstone rocks across the practice fields in the hot summer sun. "You know," he told her unconscious form, "Things were a lot easier before you showed up."

Once inside and away from the light of the moon, the rapid shifting of her body slowed, though it did not cease. Vilkas, with the help of Ria, got her out of her armor and into a bed, propped up against some pillows as they poured a healing potion down her throat. She retched it up several times, so it took more than a few tries before she could keep it down. Once she did, her breathing slowed, and eventually her eyes opened. She saw him watching her, with Ria standing anxiously over his shoulder, and looked down at the blankets again. "Thanks," she muttered.

"You're welcome," he replied, just a bit stiffly. "Ria. Leave us to talk, please."

"Yes, Vilkas," she said, with a concerned glance at Sigrid. "Are you sure you don't need any more help? Do you want me to send for your brother?"

"We'll be fine," Vilkas said.

The conversation proved difficult, for she drifted in and out of consciousness. He sat, awkwardly, at the bedside as he waited for her to become alert enough to answer his questions. Eventually she was able to fill him in on what had happened in the Underforge and at Gallows Rock. The transformation into a beast. Finding Skjor's cold body on the ground. Aela's fierce grief. Her long trek back along the road, fighting off the transformation as it threatened to take her again.

"I know why Skjor did what he did," Vilkas said, when he saw her eyes open again, "But why did _you_ do it? You didn't have to accept that, you know."

"I know," she said, and sighed, rubbing one finger over the newly-closed sword wound on her arm. "It's… complicated."

"Try me," he growled, eyes narrowed. "I hauled your sorry arse back here in one piece, the very _least_ you can do is explain _what the hell is going on beneath my nose in my own damned home._"

Her eyes slid shut again, sleepy from the effects of the potions and the transformation combined. "You know I'm… Dragonborn. Right?"

"I'd heard the rumors."

"Well…" she trailed off, as though trying to think of how best to explain it, chewing at her lip in a surprisingly vulnerable gesture. "It's true. I am. The Greybeards recognized me, formally, when I went to High Hrothgar after I left you in Solitude."

"So that's why you left without a word, then?"

"I knew you'd…not be happy about it."

"If you'd _told_ me, we could have discussed it. Like _shield-siblings_."

"I know," she said, and looked down again. "I just—couldn't do it. I had to go on my own. It was the right choice at the time. I'm the Dovahkiin, but I don't _want_ to be, Vilkas. I just want to fight; I want to buy property in the city. I want to be able to drink and fuck and live out the rest of my days quietly or die fighting or whatever _I_ wish to do. When I wish to do it. I'm not cut out to be a hero! I'm a mercenary, for Shor's sake! I don't want some grand—some grand destiny. I don't think I can _do_ it. How can _I—_as wonderful and amazing as I am—" he snorted a laugh and she mock-glared at him, "—do this? I thought maybe… if I took a wolf's soul… that the dragonblood in me would somehow just—disappear. That I wouldn't need to do _this_ anymore. That someone else could be born to fulfill those prophecies, and I could go on with my life... But I can still use the Voice. It's still inside of me."

Vilkas sighed and rubbed a hand through his beard. "You poor idiot," he said. "You have no idea how it works, do you?"

"Obviously not," she said, sliding deeper into the pillows.

"And neither Skjor or Aela thought to explain it to you," he growled, suddenly furious, hands clenching into fists in his lap. How dare they? The ceremony, the ritual, of becoming part of the beast-blood should have been more than what she received. She should have been told what to expect, told to _eat_ something or that it would be worse after—told about the way of the beast and the spirit. Told what she was truly accepting when she drank the blood from the fountain. That Aela would leave her to return alone, no matter how grief-filled her heart must have been. The rage did not abate: the lying, sneaking behind Kodlak's back, making sure he himself would not be around to stop it… He and Aela would be having words when she returned, that much was for sure. "It doesn't _replace_ your soul," he said. "I'm still a man; you're still a woman. Or a dragon, in your case."

"Hah," she said. "I feel too absolutely shitty to be a dragon right now, I think."

"You have a wolf's spirit _with_ you, a sort of symbiosis. And that 'passenger' is the mark, the burning brand, that allows Hircine to find you and claim you in death. But nothing is _replaced_. If that were so, when we find Kodlak's cure, the man who removes the wolf spirit would have no soul _left_. There would remain only a void." He frowned. "That's probably why you had such a particularly bad reaction to the transformation—if you're truly Dovahkiin—no, don't look at me like that, I'm not saying you aren't—your soul is probably in constant war with the wolf spirit—not like most of us, whose two sides, man and wolf, learn to grow as one."

"It makes sense in a bizarre mystical mumbo-jumbo kind of way," she muttered, surprising a laugh from him. "Why can't I—control this?"

"Your body is still unused to the change," Vilkas said. "Think of it as a disease you haven't learned to fight off yet. Once you grow accustomed to it, you'll be able to more finely control the transformation and your form; the moon won't have such a pronounced effect upon you. The rest of us can change wherever we would like, whenever we would like. But you… I don't know if you will ever be able to transform normally. Or if this will be the result, always."

"Oh. I don't think I… I like it very much, anyway," she laughed, though there was no humor in it. "But—Vilkas—why are you being so—nice? I didn't think…"

"You're my shield-sister," he said simply, "As much as I might not like it, you are. As stupid as your decisions might have been this night, you are. And you have my blood now, in a way. I owe it to you. As you would owe it to me."

"Well…" she trailed off. "Thanks," the word was mumbled quickly, grudgingly, into the pillows.

"Rest now," he said, ignoring her gratitude as he knew she would want him to—to consider it too deeply made him uncomfortable. "We'll talk more when the moons have set and you have slept some of this off."

"Mmhm," she muttered sleepily, eyes closed.

He did not look over his shoulder when he left the room.


	15. Dominance

**AN: **Yay, thank you to everyone who left comments! I really appreciate them. I've made some small edits in my main file as a result. :) Also, this is a little bit of a... hmm, less action-heavy chapter, some more character moments. I wrote a lot of it while listening to Iron & Wine's "Evening on the Ground (Lilith's Song)" (this may make more sense after you read a bit more, haha.

* * *

><p><em>Bitter the fate of the breaker of troth,<br>And poor is the wolf of his word._

—The Poetic Edda, from _Sigrdrífumál_, translated by Henry Adams Bellows

* * *

><p>Aela arrived with the sun in the morning, with Skjor's body slung over her shoulder. Though a slight woman of lean rather than bulging muscle, she bore his weight without complaint, having carried him home from Gallows Rock by herself. Ria gasped when she saw her arrive, back bent beneath his body, the arms swinging from his limp frame. Gradually, as the news spread through Jorrvaskr, the Companions emerged from the living quarters, lined up on the stairs to witness one of their own returned home to them, a solemn greeting cabal. Even Kodlak emerged from the depths of his quarters, squinting in the light and leaning on a cane, to see his friend brought home, face lined with age and grief. No one spoke: for what words could be used to tell of such a loss? What words could do justice to the years of companionship, shared battles and toasts and stories and wounds, that Skjor had shared with them? Farkas came down the stairs and took Skjor's body from Aela, gently, lifting the big man in his arms as though he weighed no more than a child. The Huntress watched him go, murder in her eyes.<p>

"How did this happen?" Kodlak asked quietly, grief in his voice.

"Krev the Skinner slew him," Aela replied. "He ran before us, and would not wait for a shield-sibling to guard his side."

Kodlak's gaze wavered from hers, as he watched Farkas take Skjor into the hall, so that his body could be prepared for the pyre. "He always thought he could take on the world himself," he murmured. "But we've both gotten old… so old."

Vilkas waited to see whether or not she would mention that before his death, she and Skjor had carried on the curse. But she did not. She stubbornly refused to look at him, her gaze unwavering from Kodlak, bent with age and grief. And before he had a chance to speak to her about what she had done, she had vanished into the halls, and from the halls, into the wilds.

* * *

><p>Sigrid slept through Aela's return, her body worn out and exhausted from the transformation the night before. The healing potions had done their work effectively, or perhaps she had merely needed a good night's sleep. At some point during the night, sweating and suffocating in the heat of the hall as her body fought off the wave of small transformations, she'd thrown off all of her clothes. Though she was still sore upon waking, all of her parts appeared to be human now, and her internal organs seemed settled in one place. She tested them, feeling her stomach with her fingers, pressing in. There was no pain. At this point, that was enough for her. She knew it would not be enough in the future, however: she would have to learn some semblance of control or she would never be able to travel by night again, but for now, it would do. As she stretched out her aching limbs, she saw a small note on the bedside table, folded tightly and creased. When she opened it, she saw Aela's furious, sharp writing and read:<p>

_Silver Hand leader. Fort Fellhammer. Winterhold. Kill him. Kill all of them. Tell no one._

_Winterhold_. Sigrid let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She knew the fort, one of the three ruins in those mountains that periodically filled with bandits and then emptied again, as fortunes rose and fell and men fought to the death. It was a good day's hike from her home, and if she took the route to Fort Dunstad that she'd taken with Vilkas, and approached from the south, she wouldn't have to go anywhere near the forest where she'd spent the first fourteen winters of her life. Where her father's ashes had returned to the earth.

There was a noise outside of the door to her room, and Sigrid hid the note beneath her pillow and then looked up, quickly, on her feet instantly to meet the threat, even though she was unclothed, did not even have a weapon in reach.

"Ah—I hadn't realized you were—" Vilkas said, lowering his gaze, as he stood in the doorway. Not out of embarrassment, but courtesy. Courtesy! To her? Perhaps the entire continent of Tamriel would sink into the sea, next.

"It's nothing you haven't seen before," Sigrid said, one shoulder rolling in a shrug.

He looked up again, eyes meeting across the room, and her stomach lurched in a way that had nothing to do with lycanthropy when she saw the glint there. Whatever their relationship or his feelings about her, or whether he actually thought he was attracted to her or not, there was an undeniable heat between them, burning low and slow in the pit of her belly. To keep herself from doing something she might regret later, Sigrid broke away first, looking down at the floor to find her discarded clothing. As she slid into her smallclothes and wrapped her chest, Vilkas watched her still. "Everything's human now, I see."

"Yes," she said. "It stopped sometime in the night. But I need to know how to avoid—that—happening again."

"We'll go out again this evening," he said. "The more you are exposed to the moon the easier it will become."

"I hope," she muttered.

"Have you seen or heard from Aela?" he asked.

"No," she lied, and added a half-truth: "I haven't seen her."

"If you do, let me know," Vilkas said, though he sounded suspicious, as though he did not quite believe her but did not want to question her further. "Take the day to recover. We'll go to the plains tonight."

* * *

><p>As he left her room, he shook his head, dismayed. Not that he was particularly retiring or ashamed of nakedness, but the way she'd stood before him without shame or even an embarrassed flush, meeting his eyes with that challenging gaze, set him off balance. At least he had other things to think of today, or he would have been tempted to return to her room and see if she had any interest in bedding him sober and—<em>stop it<em>, he growled to himself. _You're no green boy, eager to rut with any woman available_. No: just a particular woman, whose scarred and tattooed body, all muscle and tense movement barely contained, and whose face, though plain, fascinated him inexplicably.

There were other concerns to deal with today, however. Across the living quarters, in Skjor's old rooms, Farkas had laid the man's body out on the bed and stood watch next to it, that no one might desecrate his mortal remains before they were burnt. A Companion would guard him until the funeral ceremony, when they would all bid him goodbye and send him to the eternal Hunting Grounds and the afterlife, where his soul would hunt with Hircine until the ending of this world.

When Vilkas entered the small room, kept cool without a fire, Farkas bowed his head in a quiet greeting. The solemnity of the occasion seemed to have affected him greatly, for he had a frown on his face. "If you think of it, brother," he said after a moment, "Kodlak's the only one left."

Vilkas knew what he meant, instantly: of the three men who had served as surrogate parents to two young orphans growing up in Jorrvaskr, only one remained. Jergen had fallen several winters back when he and Skjor were attacked by vampires on the road. He had perished in battle, as he had always desired. Kodlak now suffered from the rot, body rapidly deteriorating from within. And now Skjor was gone. "It is strange," he said, taking a seat at the small table and looking at the bed where Skjor lay, eyes closed, face grey and drawn, cheeks sunken. His body seemed smaller somehow, as though when the life had drained from it, some of him had drained away as well.

"Remember when Jergen used to give us septims to hide Skjor's weapons?" Farkas said suddenly, after a long silence, a small grin sneaking onto his lips.

Even though the occasion was solemn, Vilkas couldn't help grinning back. "We were good at it. Remember the roof?"

"Never seen him that angry, before or since," Farkas said, his eyes twinkling.

That day the brothers had managed to steal Skjor's sword while he was sleeping and climb with it onto the roof of Jorrvaskr. It had taken Skjor a good several hours to figure out where they'd gone, while the entire time Vilkas and Farkas had been sunning themselves on the very tip of its roof, laying on their backs in the warm summer air and swapping pulls of pilfered ale swiped from Tilma's kitchen. And in the meantime Skjor was tearing Jorrvaskr apart, and the city too, demanding to know who had the gall to touch _his_ things. He eventually figured it out when Vilkas started pelting him with apples and, looking up, discovered the source of the projectiles and the hiding place of his weapon as Farkas raised it in an ironic salute. Enraged, he'd climbed up after them and begun a merry chase across the prow of the great, overturned longship while all of Whiterun turned out to watch, cheering either for the boys to escape or for Skjor to catch them and take his revenge. It had been merry for the brothers, anyway. Skjor was _not_ amused, but then, he'd never had much of a sense of humor. Jergen, on the other hand, had laughed until the tears streamed down his ruddy cheeks, great bellowing guffaws that echoed even hours after the dust had settled. Eventually Skjor had caught up with them, and they'd paid for it in hard labor and blood after, but it had been worth it. Both men, even nineteen years later, remembered the afternoon fondly. A time before they had experienced death. A time before the Companions had fractured. This was how Vilkas chose to remember them, his family.

Vilkas sighed, and reached out to touch Skjor's cold arm, the skin stiff and unyielding beneath his fingers. "If only he'd taken a shield-sibling with him," he muttered. "If only Kodlak's search for a cure hadn't led to…this."

"Can't change it now," Farkas said, and frowned. "Going to be strange without him here. Thought he'd always be here."

"It is strange," Vilkas said, bleakly. He could not bring himself to give in to grief or to fury. There were things he had to do: to teach Sigrid to control the wolf within her. To hunt down the Silver Hand. To bring Aela back into line. He could not afford to wallow in emotion any longer; he had indulged himself for too long, and now things had escalated dangerously because of it. Someone had to take charge, and if it was not to be Kodlak, then he would have to fill that position.

"You talk to Aela yet? Don't like where this is going myself. Shouldn't've turned the new blood without Kodlak knowing."

"Everything's gone to shit," Vilkas said, and leaned forward rubbing his eyes. "I'll find her tonight. We can't afford infighting now, not with the Silver Hand on the resurgence."

"From what I can tell," Farkas said, "When she gets done with 'em there's not going to be much Silver Hand left."

"Or we could end up _here_ again, mourning her this time," Vilkas replied sharply. "I don't want to lose anyone else. We're _not_ going to lose anyone else."

"Then you better find her," Farkas said, "Before she does anything stupid."

* * *

><p>Later that night, once the sun went down and Tilma had cleared the plates after supper, Vilkas gestured to Sigrid that she should follow him. She went more confidently than she felt. Remembering the pain of the transformation and the exhaustion of her body's continued motion following it, she worried that the same thing would happen again tonight. But she must face it at some point. And so she walked after him with her chin up, refusing to give into her misgivings. Ria watched them curiously, and looked about to follow, but one level, quelling gaze from him kept her in the seat. <em>I need to learn that trick<em>, Sigrid thought, especially after having run into Lydia the housecarl earlier in the day, hanging around outside of the mead hall and demanding to see her. _Maybe I can just tell her I'm a werewolf and she'll leave me alone_, Sigrid thought.

At the door, Vilkas turned to look at her. "I'm going to explain to you what Aela and Skjor _should_ have told you before they let you take the beast-blood," he said. "First: when you transform, make sure that you eat something. Animal. Human. Some of our number hunt both." She shuddered at the last, and he ignored it. "Otherwise, your body does not handle the change back to human as well as it might. We don't know why this is, just that you should always, always hunt, if you do take the form, unless you've been doing it long enough that you're used to the change, like my brother and I."

"Got it. Always hunt," she said, and he shot her that level look.

"This isn't funny."

"I'm not laughing!"

"You're being…_sarcastic_…and now is not the bloody time."

She grinned at him, her full lips curling away from her teeth. "It's always the time for sarcasm."

To his credit, he took a deep breath before continuing, and managed a remarkably level tone. "Next. As a new-fledged wolf, the moon has a greater control over your body and your mind than it will when you've grown accustomed to this state. We've found the best way to fight it, originally, is to remain calm: breathing slowly, concentrating on the breaths, and counting is very helpful. Put all else but control of that from your mind. The more emotional you are, the more distracted, the harder it will be to keep what happened last night from happening again."

"Wonderful," Sigrid muttered. "I've never been very good at controlling my emotions…"

Vilkas laughed then, a short, sharp bark. "None of us are, at first," he said. "The irony of it is that with the first transformations and the phases of the moon, emotions usually run high anyway. It's a self-defeating process."

"What…kind of emotions?" she asked cautiously.

"All sorts," he said, and the smile that moved briefly across his lips, so quickly that she thought she had almost imagined it, was truly criminal. "The animal sorts. Fear; anger. Hunger," and the way that his voice rounded that word told her that he wasn't speaking of the hunger of the stomach.

"Oh," was all that she had to say.

"Just follow me," he said. "Even if it's bad tonight, we won't be far from the city, and you won't be fighting _while_ fighting it off."

"I don't have to transform?" she asked.

"I think it's better if you don't," he said, as they walked through the door and into the moonlight, "You'll have trouble enough as it is. Come, we'll go through the Underforge, just in case anything strange starts happening when we walk past the guards."

The night air had a bite to it, a chill that prickled her skin and raised goosebumps on her arms. Above them, the aurora shifted gently behind the light of the moon, and she shuddered, a combination of nerves and anticipation taking hold of her as she followed him through the secret door to the Underforge. The chamber looked exactly as she had left it, Aela's blood still staining the stone fountain in the room's center. Shuddering, Sigrid remembered the taste of it, the magic taking her in its grasp and shaking hard. Instead she concentrated on Vilkas' back as he led her towards the secret exit: at least that was something solid, and predictable. Neither of them wore armor, this evening, just in case transformations were necessary, and when she emerged again onto the plains, she felt almost naked, uncomfortable without the familiar weight of her steel.

Vilkas strode out onto the plain without seeming to notice the lack. She followed after him, doing as he had told her and attempting to breathe, to picture the breath flowing in and out of her lungs, to concentrate only on that. For a paranoid moment she thought that it was starting again: she could feel the phantom prickle of fur sweeping up her arms, but when she looked down, there was nothing. _Breathe_, she told herself. _You'll be fine._ They walked in silence that way for what seemed a long time, further out into the tundra as the lights of Whiterun faded in the distance. Strangely, it was calming to do so, putting one foot in front of the other, letting that drive her forward. She knew that some of the members of the Circle possessed enhanced senses, but they had also had years with which to hone themselves. She mostly felt confused now: a barrage of new sensory information all at once, which she was unable to sort out. A barrage of new emotions, equally confusing.

He looked over his shoulder at her, a mute question on his face. "I'm fine," she said, though this was not quite true. Despite her attempts to concentrate, her ears definitely felt a little—pointier.

"Remember," he added, as they walked side-by-side now, into the darkness. "Concentrate on your breath, on the air through your lungs. A calming rhythm."

Though she tried to concentrate, her breath came a little faster, the nervousness catching hold of her again. Moving quietly through the wilds, with the moon up and the chilly winter air fading as she grew accustomed to it, there was a bizarre anticipation seizing her. Though her mind did not wish to change, her body did, yearning towards the call of the blood, a tingling warmth that overtook her. He looked sideways at her abruptly, as though he could somehow sense it, and he said: "No."

"I know," she said, and tried to think calming thoughts. To concentrate on her lungs. She found herself wondering what would happen if she grabbed hold of his hand.

"No," he said again. "Don't give in to it."

In the distance, just up the tundra, she caught sight of a hulking black shape, and her ears, unpleasantly lupine in their form, pricked forward. She could hear the sound of ripping flesh, loud chewing, and a snuffling breath, loud and hot as the bellows of a forge. As the monster caught sight of them, it raised its head from the elk upon which it feasted, yellow eyes shining in the dark, and it snarled. White teeth flashed in the light of the moon, stained with blood and viscera, saliva dripping.

"Aela," Vilkas said.

* * *

><p>Of course he should have known she would be hunting. Of course she would not have gone far: she would never have chanced missing Skjor's funeral pyre. He walked closer to her, steadily, slowly, so as not to scare her off. "I said we would have words," he said, "And taking the beast-form won't stop me from saying them to you. You and Skjor were <em>wrong<em>. Very wrong. You will _never_ do this again. No one else will be turned."

Aela snarled at him, tensing as if to attack, and he looked her in the eye, speaking loudly. "Aela. You don't want to do this. I know you're grieving for Skjor—we all are—but you _must_ cease this crusade. Whatever your feelings, Kodlak is still the Harbinger. You will return to Jorrvaskr and you _will not_ leave until this is settled, one way or another."

The creature reared up on its hind legs, massive limbs lunging forward to ward him off, hissing and spitting defiance, and then howled, long and clear. A mocking noise, a mocking gesture. She was telling him, essentially, that she would do as she wished, as she and Skjor had done before, as she would continue to do.

Vilkas' eyes narrowed. "Aela. I did not want to do this. But you leave me no choice."

"What are you—" Sigrid started to exclaim, but it was too late: he was already changing. Though Kodlak had asked them not to change, he could not avoid it in such a situation. Aela's defiance would result only in more innocent people being hurt. Who would be changed next? Athis? Ria? The thought of the young Imperial taking this curse onto herself, when she had only joined the Companions for adventure and glory, enraged him. Talking her out of it would have no effect; Aela had always been more animal than any of them that way. Once she had an idea in her head it was impossible to dislodge it, unless shown her place. Vilkas would have to force her to acknowledge that though Kodlak no longer took to the beast-form, the pack still had order. _Forgive me, old man_, he thought, as his bones cracked and broke, as the clothing he wore ripped and tore from the hulking monster's frame.

He could hear Sigrid gasp: she was unsure of whether to stand between them or what to do. Before his mouth erupted fully into a wolf's muzzle, he managed to snap, "_Stay. Out_."

Aela came at him in an aggressive rush forward on all fours, her tail cocked and lips pulled back to bare her fangs, ears forward, snapping at him. She did not actually bite, but instead stopped just short of closing her teeth on his neck. He met her the same way, a growl rumbling through him as he lunged for her. Even in wolf form, he was larger, and he used it to his advantage, keeping her on the defensive. Much of the fights between werewolves were about shows of strength, proving might: in the same pack, not by physical injury, but dominance displays. It was not something he had learned, but something that he knew, instinctively, the first time he had transformed and followed Kodlak meekly to the hunt. And now he faced his shield-sister, gore-covered and grief-crazed, her fury channeled upon throwing him down. She went for him, teeth catching his shoulder, and he smacked her away with one paw, tossing her to the ground.

Instantly she was on her hind legs again, never remaining down for longer than a second. The battle went on that way for what seemed like ages: she refused to surrender, despite the fact that he gave her many opportunities to do so. Finally she attempted to rip his throat open, and he slammed his head into hers, momentarily stunning her. With a pained roar, she slashed at him with her vicious claws, but he used the momentum against her. As she came forward he lunged beneath her arm, using the force of her movement to throw her to the ground, pinning her, as his jaws closed around her neck. They remained in that position, his teeth pressing in and the female werewolf panting, panicked. Finally she recognized that he had won: relaxed her tensed frame. He released her throat and she whined, rolling over onto her stomach and presenting it to him, and he accepted this display for what it was. Submission.

He turned away from her then and met Sigrid's gaze. The woman was terrified, though anyone looking at her would not have been able to tell. He could, though. He could smell it on her, fear and…something else. Her eyes were very wide, the pupils dilated, occasionally a flash of gold seen through them. Though controlling the blood better than she had the night before, she had not managed mastery, especially not now, in a situation so very much the opposite of calm. Behind him, with another, almost apologetic whine, Aela backed away from them before turning suddenly and running off into the night, her heavy, misshapen limbs taking her home. He expelled his breath in a sharp exhalation of air, and reluctantly released his hold on the beast-form.

It had been so long since he had changed that the wolf did not want to let go of _him_. He had to fight his way back to his human form, remembering who _Vilkas_ was amidst all of the memories of running through the forest with the snow beneath his paws. Even as he could feel his limbs cracking, reforming, the fur melting back below his skin, the blood still caught hold of him, as if to say: _this_ is what you are missing by giving me up, _this_ clarity of feeling, _this_ fury, _this_ desire. The guilt would come later, but for now he was caught still in the elation of the wild, of having fought and won and thrown his opponent to the ground below the cold light of the moon. Of proving his strength. And so he found himself a man, a man in a ragged, torn shirt and breeches, bleeding from the shoulder, wracked with the very emotions he had been trying to ignore for weeks.

The woman ran to him, crouching to examine the wound. It was not as deep as it could have been: Aela's fangs had caught him as he was pulling away. "What the hell was that about?" she demanded. "Where did she go? What's going on?"

From the corner of his eye could see the shifting of the skin of her leg, but was too preoccupied to warn her. "Dominance," he said, "With Kodlak no longer taking the beast form things have gotten… out of hand. She always took to the wolf side more than most of us. It's the only way she'll listen."

She looked at him, questioning, a flash of yellow in her eyes that was gone as quickly as it had appeared. The gaze flicked down at him, where his clothing had torn, and back up. She said, "You're bleeding."

"It's nothing," he said hoarsely, unable to look away. Nothing a healing potion or stitches couldn't fix. He should return to Jorrvaskr. He should not have changed, not while she—or anyone—was still around. Not after so long, not when the moons were full, not when his mind was awash with troubles. There were many things he should have done, and it was too late for all of them. As her hand extended to touch his shoulder, his own flew out, grabbing her by the wrist, fingers digging into the soft underside of it. Their eyes met, her mouth parted, and his other hand went up to grab the back of her head. Pulled her forward by the hair, lips crushing against lips. It was a vicious kiss—she responded to him eagerly, in kind, bit his lip hard. And he tasted the metallic tang of his own blood in his mouth. "This isn't—"

She shook her head, eyes fierce and mouth set determinedly, plain features twisted and primal. "Don't you fucking _dare_ say anything," she growled, "Don't you _dare_ stop," and then he was kissing her again, pulling her forward until there was no space between them, her small breasts pressed against his bare chest, her hands raking down his back before she shoved him down into the grass, landing hard on top of him. He laughed then, the wind momentarily knocked from his lungs, and thought for a second of the first time they had fought in the training grounds of Jorrvaskr and he had said, _if this were a real fight I would have ripped your throat out_, even as they lay like this. And he wondered whether he hadn't wanted this, wanted _her_, all along, from the first moment she'd walked into Jorrvaskr with a challenge in her eye. Wanted, as he did now, to set his teeth and tongue against the vulnerable pulse at her throat, to bite down, to test her skin and her strength. Wanted to feel her struggle against him as he flipped her over onto her back, her breathless laugh as she taunted him, _is that all you've got_? Wanted her hands, curled into fists, lashing out to try and regain her dominance, even as she groaned and writhed against him. Wanted to rip aside her clothes and push himself inside her, slowly, forcefully, even as they wrestled on the grass with only the moonlight to illuminate them. Wanted to give in to something animal, forceful, that he himself didn't fully understand.

And later, when she held his shoulders down into the earth, and gasped his name in a husky, frantic whisper, eyes closed tightly, tensed around him, that was enough to drive the doubts, momentarily, from his mind.

And everything else.

* * *

><p>Sigrid lay in the grass on her stomach, quite paralyzed, and could only manage to say, "Uh." She shifted a bit underneath him, his head buried in the curve of her neck, where it met the shoulder. She tried again: "Um," was all that came out this time. Cheek pressed against the prickly tundra, she could see from the corner of her eye that wisps of cloud had drifted across the moons, casting strange shadows upon the ground. The sweat cooling on her skin chilled her, and she shivered. That roused him, and he opened his eyes, rolling off of her onto the hard ground, and promptly closed his eyes again. All at once the reality of what had happened hit her, and she sat up abruptly despite her limbs feeling boneless and heavy. Those same limbs seemed blessedly fur-free; as far as she could tell, nothing had changed. Or had stopped changing, once she'd been distracted. <em>Didn't he say distractions <em>weren't _helpful_? she thought briefly, before grabbing him by the shoulder and shaking. "Wake up, you idiot!" she said. "We can't stay out here. How in Oblivion would we explain this to a guard?"

His only response was a mumbled string of unintelligible words, so she slapped him, hard, on the stomach. That did the trick. His eyes flew open, and after a moment he said, "You're right." They looked about them, assessing the situation: two bruised, filthy warriors, mostly naked. Two pairs of clothing, shredded. The bloody carcass of the elk Aela had slaughtened not far away. Both of them splotched with blood from his shoulder wound, which seemed to have stopped bleeding at least. She couldn't help it, laughter bubbled from her throat as she tried to imagine what a guard would think, coming upon them that way. Probably assume it was some sort of disgusting necromantic ritual. He shot a sideways gaze at her and said dryly, "I hope this isn't your usual reaction to fucking someone. Small wonder no one wants to keep you around."

"My usual reaction is running away," she said.

He scowled at her as he pulled himself to his feet, and picked up the remnants of his pants. If he held them up with one hand, they wouldn't fall down around his ankles again. "Right. We'll have to go in through the Underforge…" he trailed off. He only hoped Aela and Farkas were not around, for either of them would know, instantly, what had happened. "You'll go into Jorrvaskr first. I'll follow you after a bit."

"Shy?" she teased, "_Now_?"

"No, I just…don't want to have to explain anything," he said, raising an eyebrow. "And I don't think you do, either. You've been part of mercenary companies before. Do _you_ want to deal with what's going to follow? The Companions are no different in that respect."

Remembering the vulgar jokes, the constant ribbing, and the pranks that inevitably flowed from such discoveries—including surprising the unlucky couple in the middle of the act by dumping buckets of ice-cold water over them—she sighed. "No. You're right. We'd better get going before anyone else wakes."

It was difficult to estimate the time, now that the moons had been completely covered by clouds. Sunrise did not appear as though it would begin any time soon; she could not even hear the sound of birds that signaled the hour before it. She was grateful for the darkness as she trudged back to Whiterun, wearing little more than torn rags, and for his silence. Not a companionable silence. She did not feel comfortable around him, no matter what had happened between them, knowing that however much he seemed to enjoy fucking her, that didn't mean he had any kind of respect for her as a person or a warrior. Idly she wondered whether he would ever view her as anything other than an immoral sellsword who ran off at the slightest bit of trouble, and found she did not really care. This arrangement might be enough incentive to put up with his terrible personality and unconscious arrogance. She was feeling positively cheerful about it, actually. Now if only she could take a long, warm bath and then stretch out in bed alone… a yawn escaped her, unbidden, eyes slipping closed even as she walked.

"Stay awake," Vilkas ordered her. "I'm not carrying your sorry arse back into Whiterun again."

"Too heavy for your puny little child's arms?" she responded instantly. "Poor baby."

He snorted. "No. Don't want people to get the wrong idea about the Companions. We're a mercenary guild, not a cart service."

"Hmmm," she said, and yawned again. "Do you do this for every new member of the Circle? I don't imagine how anyone gets any sleeping done around here. Or work."

"No," he said shortly.

"Don't get your smallclothes in a twist. It was an honest question."

"What happened tonight, no. Taking to the plains to learn how to control the transformations, and the beast-form—yes." They had reached the edge of the Whiterun mountain where the Underforge's secret exit opened, and he ran his hand over the rock, searching for the spot that would activate the mechanism to raise the stone. A quick press and it slid open, and both of them peered anxiously inside—luckily, it seemed empty. Vilkas stepped in cautiously despite this, and Sigrid followed him. In the candelit room, she could now see exactly how awful they looked. He was covered in mud; his shoulder looking as though, well, a wild beast had ripped into it with its teeth. And yet… she took a moment to covertly admire his leanly muscled frame, the dark hair trailing down his chest, the battle scars… He caught her looking, and smirked. She made a rude gesture in reply.

"All right," he said, "You first. I'll follow at a distance."

"And if anyone asks any questions, we go _right_ for the throat," she said, miming a slashing movement.

Vilkas shook his head again, a gesture of dismay. "I haven't seen anyone with the moon-sickness this bad in quite some time. Try not to talk to anyone or they're going to think you're drunk."

She did feel a bit punch-drunk, though she could not tell whether it had anything to do with the moon. "Only a little tipsy," she said, and slipped through the door.

When she entered Jorrvaskr, the only person awake was Tilma, sweeping the floor. Apparently, the woman never slept. She did look up when she heard the doors, however, and she examined Sigrid without a change in expression. "Good morning, dear," she said.

"Good morning, Tilma," Sigrid said brightly, standing in the middle of the room in a shirt that was now little more than a rag with holes for her arms, pantsless. She did not feel embarrassed, for she reasoned that Tilma had probably seen much worse in her many years tending to a group of hard-drinking warriors. This was relatively mild, surely. And so she lifted her chin and said with all of the dignity that she could muster, "I am going to take a bath now."

"Oh, lovely, dear," Tilma said. "Enjoy yourself."

Was she imagining it, or did the old woman wink at her?

She must have been imagining it.

Sigrid limped down the stairs to the baths, swearing under her breath.

* * *

><p>Vilkas waited, trying to give her enough time to get into the mead hall before he followed. He counted to one hundred, then two hundred, but lost count somewhere around two hundred sixty and started over. When he reached six hundred, he opened the door and, holding his breeches up with his left hand, went up the stairs to Jorrvaskr. It was unfortunate timing, for though the woman was nowhere in sight, Vignar Gray-Mane was. Vignar the Revered, the oldest member of the Companions, who had seen the rise and fall of half a dozen Harbingers, was standing at the top of the stairs looking at Vilkas as though he had grown a second head, an expression of genteel horror.<p>

"Ah… Vignar," Vilkas said. "This isn't what it looks like."

Vignar did not respond, but his bushy gray eyebrows rose even higher.

As Vilkas walked around him, he heard the old man mutter something about irresponsible children and Jorrvaskr going to Oblivion in a handbasket.

Perhaps it was.


	16. Parties

**AN: **Thanks to everyone who left reviews and comments! To the rest of you... haha I hate to beg, but pleeeeease let me know what you think? :(

Also, the song the bard sings in the song is the version of "The Dragonborn Comes" arranged by the wonderful Malukah-you can find her on Soundcloud and if you haven't listened to it I definitely recommend it!

* * *

><p><em>Fed and washed should one ride to court<br>though in garments none too new…_

—The Poetic Edda, from _Hávamál_, translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>Sigrid did not realize exactly how exhausted she was, or that she'd fallen asleep in the baths, until Njada Stonearm shook her awake, looking disgusted. "Wake up, you awful woman," the warrior said, shaking her once more for good measure. Sigrid blinked at her and sat up in the warm water, which continuously circulated, the result of a spring that welled up beneath the mountain of Dragonsreach, heated by metal pipes warmed with an enchantment, the bath a long, shallow stone-lined pool that could hold several people easily. Njada looked down at her with a sneer and said, "I'm still trying to remember why Skjor let you in here in the first place. He was always too kind."<p>

That did not seem much like the Skjor she remembered, but she let the remark slide. She stood up, water cascading from her, and looked at her hands, which were wrinkled and pruned. "What time is it?"

"Just after seven," Njada sniffed. "You'd better make yourself presentable, if that's even possible. The funeral is in two hours."

She estimated that she had probably been asleep in the bathtub for three or four hours, and shook her head in dismay. The warmth had been so inviting to her sore limbs that she had closed her eyes for but a moment, and now… Shaking herself off like a dog, Sigrid grabbed one of the towels that lined the rack and wrapped it around her body, hurrying back towards the living quarters. Over her shoulder she could just make out Njada muttering to herself about the quality of the recruits, and that Vilkas was right not to want a common thug admitted in the first place. The last comment, though, only drew a smirk from her target.

Sigrid dressed quickly and surveyed herself in the small mirror hanging on the wall of the common dormitory area. If she wore her armor the worst of the dark bruises on her throat were hidden, and a quick comb of her fingers through her hair put it some semblance of order, though it would need to be cut soon. It was beginning to get shaggy, hanging around her ears and at her temples. No time for that before the funeral, however. Ria peeked around the edge of the hall, and smiled at her. "Feeling better, friend?" she asked.

"Much better," Sigrid said, a little awkwardly, unsure whether Ria knew of the Circle's secrets or not. Better to keep her secrets close to her chest.

"Come on," Ria said, gesturing towards the stairs, "We should go."

She followed the young woman up the stairs, out of Jorrvaskr, and to the top of the Skyforge, where Skjor's body had been laid out in state, holding his best weapons and wearing the finest armor. Kodlak himself had washed and prepared the body, refusing assistance from Andurs, the local priest of Arkay. _He is a burier of men_, Kodlak had said simply, _Skjor deserves to be given a warrior's fare-well_. And so the Companions assembled around the pyre, and Kodlak raised the torch and spoke the traditional words, voice carrying over the wind as the rest of the warriors echoed him. She could see Ria's eyes had teared up, though Njada and the rest of the Companions watched, stony-faced. Aela stood at the back of the crowd, her face stormy and furious. Sigrid had not seen her since the woman had run off into the night. She stood tense, watching as the flames licked her lover's body, flickering over his skin and taking time to catch fire. The smell of burning leather and skin and flesh carried across the wind as they stood silently, watching him burn, Kodlak's shoulders bowed and his back bent.

The rest of the day would be spent in remembrance and celebration: the funerals of the Companions were, Sigrid discovered, a combination of solemn wake and raucous party. The drinking began after the flames died down, sending the warrior off to the afterlife in a manner befitting his life: the more ale consumed in his name, the more fights started and won, the more they honored his memory. At the beginning of the feast, Kodlak watched them celebrating in morose silence, a sad smile upon his face, and eventually excused himself to spend time in contemplation of his friend's ultimate fate. Though they began in Jorrvaskr, the celebration eventually spilled over into the streets of Whiterun, where bemused citizens watched the procession marching down the hill to the Bannered Mare.

Sigrid learned a number of stories about the taciturn Skjor that she had never heard before: the time that Vilkas and Farkas had stolen his sword was her favorite, mostly because she could not imagine either man so young or carefree. "I can't believe you were ever that young," she said.

"Oh, but we were," Farkas said, as he ordered another round of mead for their table in the corner of the Bannered Mare, "And Vilkas was a puny thing. 'Fore he had his growth."

Vilkas leveled a steely glare at his brother. "At least I grew, ice-brain. You're still an idiot."

Farkas ignored him, focusing instead upon Sigrid and Athis, who were watching this entire exchange wide-eyed. "And then there was the time that Skjor caught a thief trying to break into Jorrvaskr…"

"Hung him by the ankles from the prow of the hall," Vilkas said fondly.

In such a warm environment, both in mood and in heat, with the fires stoked and the mead flowing, surrounded by memories of the fallen, it was easy to forget her responsibilities. Sigrid leaned back in her chair and grinned as she listened to Vilkas and Farkas bickering about who Skjor had thrashed the most when they were boys, and Athis' reminiscence:

"Oh, and we mustn't forget that time before we went out to meet the Karthwasten bandit camp and Torvar was still drunk in the morning… I will never, ever forget how he forced him to run in circles on the practice grounds until he sobered up." Athis' sharp-planed face flickered in a nasty grin.

Torvar scowled at the memory, muttering something about it being unfair to assign him to a job the night after he was celebrating another victory.

"Or the time he killed that saber cat with only a dinner knife," Athis said with a sigh. "It was beautiful."

"You realize that most of your memories of Skjor involve someone getting seriously injured or killed," Sigrid pointed out, as she waved Saadia over for another drink, already feeling pleasantly drunk.

"He was a good man," Athis said fondly. "Bard!" he yelled, "A song in honor of our friend!"

Mikael, the semi-official bard in residence, struck a pose by the fire and began to strum his lute, blue eyes twinkling in the light of the flame. He was a handsome man with blond hair tied at the base of his neck, and he obviously had a very high opinion of himself, smiling intently at Ria as he introduced himself to the crowd: "An original composition, my friends, in honor of the dear departed…" Chest jutted out dramatically, he broke into song, strong voice bellowing over the noise of the crowd. "Today we sing in honor of Skjor, a warrior 'mongst warriors, that much is sure… his sword mightily swinging as he cut through his foes, to Sovngarde surely his soul henceforth goeeees…"

"Oh, that's bloody awful," Vilkas groaned.

Farkas nodded in agreement. "Terrible. Bard! Another. You dishonor his memory!"

Mikael scowled, but obliged the big man, who even seated, looked as though he could easily make a man regret crossing him. "Ohhh, there once was a hero named Ragnar the Red—"

"No, that won't do," Farkas interrupted.

"I had no idea you were such a musical connoisseur, Farkas," Athis interrupted dryly.

Farkas ignored him and scanned the room quickly before his eyes fixed upon a figure by the fire, foot tapping idly against the stones. "You! The traveling bard!" A young woman with freckles splattered across her nose, holding a well-polished guitar, looked up suddenly and mouthed, 'me?' Mikael, who had obviously been monopolizing the spotlight, scowled, but ceased his protests. "A song!" Farkas said.

"Right, then," the girl said, sitting down on a chair by the fire. Nimble fingers tested the guitar's strings and when satisfied that it was in tune, strummed the first chords of her song. She began to sing, her soft voice haunting and solemn, simply and without embellishment.

Sigrid, who recognized the chords, hid her face in one hand and muttered, "Ohhh, no…"

"Our hero, our hero, claims a warrior's heart," the bard sang, eyes slipping shut, the emotion plainly stamped on her face as she lost herself in the music, "I tell you, I tell you, the Dragonborn comes…" It was the sort of voice that could stop a furious beast in its tracks, perfectly in tune but holding an old sorrow and regret that echoed through the words, and she went on without regard to anyone else around her: "With a Voice wielding power of the ancient Nord art—believe, believe the Dragonborn comes!" The inn had gradually fallen silent, as all within it listened in fascination—the song was an old one, and generally, more uptempo, almost heroic. Instead, her mournful voice had turned it into a lament, sounding almost like a plea: "It's an end to the evil of all Skyrim's foes—beware, beware, the Dragonborn comes. For the darkness has passed but the legend yet grows… you'll know, you'll know, the Dragonborn's come."

Sigrid winced, sliding more deeply into her chair. The other Companions knew that she had slain the dragon of Whiterun, but only Vilkas knew that the Greybeards had formally recognized her as Dovahkiin. It was an uncomfortable feeling: she had almost forgotten that she must still return to Riverwood to hear the rest of Delphine's plan, sublimating it beneath all of the insane things that had happened to her in the last week. The woman's lovely voice scaled up on the high notes, floating easily from the depths to heights. Sigrid was suddenly overwhelmed in a wash of guilt: what had she done? Failed to save Skjor? Ignored her new-found resolution to try to do her father proud?

The bard was still singing, her voice rising and falling in a spine-tinglingly lovely fall of notes, but now she was singing an added verse that no one had heard before. Sigrid's head snapped up as she heard the unmistakeable signs of the dragon language, which sounded bizarrely out of place in the young woman's soft voice, her Nordic accent moulding the harsh syllables into something plaintive and mellifluous. "_Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin, naal ok zin los vahriin, wah dein vokul mahfaeraak ahst vaal… Ahrk fin norok paal graan fod nust hon zindro zaan, Dovahkiin, fah hin kogaan mu draal_…" As the girl finished singing, head drooped over the guitar with her eyes still closed and the last twang of the string reverberated in the quiet, the inn's stunned silence suddenly broke and and erupted into applause.

Suddenly the inn was too warm for her, and she thought she might suffocate. Sigrid took the opportunity, while the eyes of all were fixed upon the girl, to slip from her chair and shove her way through the crowd. She needed air. The bard did not have the true force of the Voice behind her, so she must have been singing blind, not knowing what the true meaning of the words. Sigrid had a sense of them, though, and it was enough to serve as a chilling reminder of her failed attempt to escape her destiny, which she could not seem to escape, no matter what she did: there was always something to remind her, whether it was the destroyed village of Snowsbranch or the chilling voice of the bard. The Words of the dragons, inside her and outside. Outside, the air was chill and the moons were waning, and she took a deep breath to steady herself, before the sudden sound of footsteps at her back startled her into motion, whirling around, sword drawn.

"Just me, shield-sister," Farkas said, holding up his hands as stopped, the point of her sword barely ghosting the chestplate of his armor.

She exhaled, sheathing the sword in one smooth movement. "Apologies," she said shortly.

He sat down on the little stone wall that ran 'round the perimeter of the building, next to the brazier that burned merrily with lit tinder, and patted the stone next to him, indicating that she sit. She remained standing, still tense, her arms folded over her armor. Their eyes met in the dark: silver and gray, unwavering. "I didn't know she would sing that song," he said. "Sorry. Didn't mean to upset you."

"It's all right."

His level gaze did not shift from her face, though he frowned a little, as though unsure of what to say next. "My brother is better with words than I am…" he started.

"Trust me," Sigrid said, "He's probably not."

A rumbling laugh broke from him, and he asked, "So if you're not upset, why are you out here?"

She shrugged, and then glanced back at the inn. "Just—a reminder of other places that I should be."

Farkas frowned, confused. "You should be in there, celebrating Skjor's life, with the rest of us."

How to explain to the man that she didn't truly belong there, no matter the experiences she had shared with the Companions over the last few weeks? That there were things she should have been doing, but that she was too frightened to begin, worried that if she gave in and fulfilled some mystical destiny, that she would be _changed_ forever? That it wasn't in her to be a hero? That his brother was right, she was not much more than a common thug who gloried in fighting and destruction, but when it came time to make the difficult decisions, ran from them? "What do you do, Farkas, when you don't know _what_ to do?"

Farkas shrugged. "Most of the time, the thing you don't want to do is the thing you should be doing. So I usually do that."

Sigrid exhaled, sharply, and said, "Is it really that easy?"

"No," he said. "But what is?"

_If only it were really that simple_, she thought. But perhaps it was. She felt as though a burden, however small, had been lifted from her shoulders, and impulsively threw her arms around him in a bear hug. Startled, he returned the gesture, tree-trunk arms wrapping around her broad back in a gesture of brotherly affection. "Thank you, shield-brother," she said, and then pulled herself from his grasp, "Look… I need to go. Will you tell the others that I'll be back within the week?"

"If you wish," he said, frowning. "But where are you going?"

"To do the thing I don't want to do," she replied, and walked off into the darkness.

* * *

><p>When Farkas returned to the tavern, the party was still in full swing. Mikael had been banished to the corner, singing harmony, while the traveling bard had been encouraged onto a table, strumming her guitar as she played an upbeat tune. Vilkas watched Ria dancing with Athis, her cheeks flushed, laughing as he whirled her around in a circle. The tempo increased until Ria shrieked and almost lost her balance, As Farkas sat down next to him, he caught a familiar scent lingering on his brother's body, and instantly, his gaze sharpened, eyes narrowed. "You didn't—"<p>

Farkas rolled his eyes heavenward, as though beseeching the Divines for the patience to deal with his older brother. "No, I didn't. Don't worry, you've certainly marked your damn territory thoroughly enough."

"What was that about, then?"

"She's off again," Farkas shrugged, as he helped himself to another mug of ale.

Vilkas shook his head, but kept his thoughts to himself. After her confession while he'd sat by her bedside, he wasn't sure how he felt about the constant running off. Unreliable, yes, especially when their numbers were diminished. But if she was truly Dovahkiin—and he had seen the absorption of the soul himself—than perhaps there was a reason for it. He ran a hand over his beard, frowning. If anything what frustrated him most was that she refused to take anyone with her. Didn't she realize that such actions could get a warrior killed? Didn't it only just happen with Skjor? He snorted, and took another swig of his ale. The woman was a headstrong idiot, and that was all there was to it. "Did she say where she was going?"

"Play 'The Age of Aggression'!" someone in the crowd yelled.

"No," Farkas said.

"Hmm." He would have pressed further, but his brother was not in the mood to give up further information: for some reason, he had taken a shining to the troublesome new recruit. No matter. They were leaving for Solitude in the morning, having received by courier an assignment to protect a merchant wagon bringing gold ore to Jarl Elisif. And they had the rest of the night to finish celebrating Skjor's life, and his death.

He resolved to put her out of his mind, and so he did.

* * *

><p>Sigrid packed lightly: only her armor, weapons, and few healing potions just in case, and set out on the road to Riverwood. As she walked, her inebriation wore off, helped along when she took a moment to stick her head in the river, watching the silvery salmon flitting through the water in the pale moonlight. The road was by now familiar, and she managed it at a fast clip, jogging, in under a half an hour. She did not bother to greet Orgnar, but instead glanced over her shoulder to make sure she was not followed, and then made her way straight to the room with the hidden wardrobe door, closing both doors behind her and, after a moment's hesitation, making her way down the stairs.<p>

Delphine was sitting at the table, frowning over a map and scribbling notes on it with a sharp quill pen, biting her lip in concentration as she did so. She was instantly on her feet when she heard the footsteps, but relaxed visibly when she saw that it was Sigrid. "Hello," she greeted her, and then went straight to business: "I've figured out how we're going to get you into the Thalmor Embassy."

"That didn't take long."

"I've been doing this a long time, remember? While the Thalmor've been looking for me, I've been watching them," Delphine said with a hint of smugness to her voice.

"So what's your plan?" Sigrid asked, and she suspected that she was not much going to like the answer.

Delphine's eyes narrowed as she gestured to the map. "The Thalmor ambassador to Solitude, Elenwen, regularly throws parties where the rich and connected cozy up to the elves." Her voice rolled in disgust on the word _elves _and her smile became predatory. "I can get you into one of those parties. Once you're inside the Embassy, you can get away and find Elenwen's secret files—I have a contact inside. He's not up for this kind of high-risk mission, but he can help you."

"How can I trust him?" Sigrid asked.

"His name's Malborn. Wood elf, plenty of reason to hate the Thalmor. You can trust him, I promise. I'll get word for him to meet you in Solitude, at the Winking Skeever. You know it?"

Sigrid, remembering the first night she had stayed there, smirked. "I know it."

"While you're doing that, I'll work on getting you an invitation to Elenwen's little…party."

"Aye," said Sigrid. "You don't think you'll have any problems?"

"Not with Malborn on the inside. You'll have a real invitation, don't worry. As long as you can act the part of a Thalmor toady, you'll get past the guards. All you have to do is meet me at the stables after you've arranged things with him. Any other questions?"

Though Sigrid privately wondered whether it would be as easy as all of that, but all she said was: "I'll see you in Solitude."

"Be careful," Delphine said. "There's a horse outside the inn that you can borrow, if you'd like. Bring him to the Solitude stables and leave him there with Geimund. Divines keep you." And with a sharp salute, Sigrid knew she was dismissed.

Secretly, she was relieved that the horse had been provided. She had been doing a decent job of saving the money from the Companions assignments, though only the rescue of Velwyn Lucilius had provided her with enough of an advance towards the house she hoped to purchase. But as time went by, she wondered whether she would even live long enough to need to buy a residence outside of Jorrvaskr. Although there were benefits to having more privacy than was offered by the dorm-room like atmosphere of the mead hall. Saddling the horse, quickly, efficiently, she sighed. _One day at a time, woman. _

And with a nudge of her knees, she guided the horse from the stable, an easy walk first before she would gradually increase its speed. She imagined the journey to Solitude, this time with the ability to gallop over the flat plains of Whiterun, wind in her hair and the city at her back, and for the first time since leaving the Bannered Mare, she grinned. This was more like it.

Just a woman and her sword and her horse, riding into the unknown.

The ride was an easy one, though she occasionally slid from the gelding's back and allowed him to walk, so that he wouldn't wear himself out. He was a big animal, with a barrel chest and a good balance of speed and size, and carried her armored weight without complaint, perhaps subconsciously appreciative that she did not use spurs or a whip. It had taken him a little time to get used to her, however: perhaps he could smell the wolf on her still. Once she had fed him some apples and he realized that she was not going to gobble him up, however, he bore her without shying, for he had obviously been trained for battle, for he never so much as startled at sudden noises in the wild, and did a fine job of smashing a frostbite spider to a pulp when it dared to rush at his withers.

The Solitude stables were well-kept enough that she did not feel worried about leaving another woman's horse with Geimund, the gruff stablemaster. "Good looking animal," he said, as he took the horse's reins from her.

"Aye," she replied, with a sharp smile. "Don't think the spider he pulped on the road would agree with you, though."

Geimund laughed, and patted the horse's flank fondly. "Don't worry, miss, I'll take good care of him for you."

"Thank you," Sigrid said, and handed him the appropriate coin, then squared her shoulders and walked up the road to the main gate, her stomach humming with the excitement she always felt before taking on a particularly dangerous task for the mercenary companies. She was especially reminded of the time she'd snuck into a well-defended skooma warehouse through a forgotten sewer grate, pulling herself up through the stone tunnel, not knowing if the guards within had discovered the weak point, the terror and almost sexual thrill of not knowing what awaited her beyond the grate.

As she approached the gate, the guard looked at her and said shortly, "Keep your nose clean, or you'll end up like Roggvir."

_Probably_.

In the main courtyard of the entrance, she saw that a small crowd had gathered around the executioner's block. A Nord man crouched before it, and for a moment she had a brief flashback to Helgen, her cheek in another man's slippery blood before she had looked into Alduin's mad yellow eyes for the first time. Shaking her head, Sigrid forced herself back to the present, and tried to ignore the crowd noise around her. A little girl was crying, "They can't hurt Uncle Roggvir, daddy, you've got to tell them he didn't do it!" Her father said softly, sternly, "Svari, you need to go home and stay there…" And around them, the crowd was yelling curses, invectives: _Traitor! You betrayed us! Get on with it!_ Sigrid did not stick around to see his head chopped off, or to find out what he had done to betray the city. Instead, she made a beeline for the Winking Skeever, and closed the noise out along with the door.

The Winking Skeever looked just as she remembered, and she hurried away from the bar so that the publican would not catch sight of her: she was not in the mood for lewd jokes. At a table in the corner, she caught sight of a wood elf seated at a table, looking rather fidgety and nervous. She sighed, for if this was Malborn she surely hoped he had a better poker face than he was showing right now. Sitting across from him, she met his startled eyes. "What do you need?" he asked suspiciously.

"Our mutual friend sent me," she said, smiling in what she hoped was a reassuring way at him.

While the nervousness abated, he looked her over again, taking in her scarred lip and nose, the tattoos, the shaggy hair. "Really? _You're_ who she picked? I hope she knows what she's doing…" he muttered to himself.

"I assure you I'm capable," Sigrid snapped, "We don't have much time. Get on with it."

"You're right, you're right," he muttered, "Here's the deal. I can smuggle some equipment into the embassy for you, but don't plan on being able to bring in anything else. The Thalmor take their security _very_ seriously. Only what you can't live without, and I'll make sure to get it in. The rest is up to you."

"Right now?"

"_Yes_, I don't have much time."

She glanced around the room, but luckily, all of the residents seemed to be outside watching the execution. It took under a minute to unbuckle her armor, unbuckle her scabbard, and hand the rest of her pack to him. Belatedly, she remembered the dagger in her boot and the garotte in her pocket. She handed him those as well. "Here's what I need," she said, standing there in plain clothes and somehow feeling more naked than when Vilkas had torn them from her body only two days before. She realized, belatedly, that when she removed her armored boots, she had not thought to bring other shoes with her. _You really should have planned this better_.

"Good. I need to get back before I'm missed," Malborn replied, shoving all of her gear into a large bag. "Okay. I'll get this inside the embassy for you. I'll find you at the party tonight. Don't worry."

"This'd better work," Sigrid said. "Or I'll kill you."

"Don't worry," Malborn said, with a sardonic smile, "If it fails, the Thalmor will kill me first. Gods will it won't come to that." And with that he stood and walked quickly from the Winking Skeever. Sigrid gave him a few moments' head start before she, too, left the Inn. In the courtyard, the execution's crowd had dispersed, leaving only the executioner, a huge Redguard, cleaning up the mess and sharpening his axe. She did not look too closely at him, and instead walked from the city as quickly as she could without looking as though she was in particular hurry.

"Hey!" one of the guards said, "Put some shoes on, you crazy woman."

She ignored him and walked gingerly down the road to the stables, keeping one eye out for sharp rocks or broken glass. Luckily, Delphine was waiting for her behind a windmill. "Have you given Malborn the gear you want to smuggle into the embassy?" she asked, then looked down and smirked. "I see you have, or you'd be wearing some shoes right now, hmm?"

"Yes," Sigrid said, scowling, "He's all set."

"Good. I have your invitation to the party. But the only way you're going to get past the guards is if they really believe you're an invited guest. Which means you need to look the part, and not armed to the teeth," Delphine said, looking her up and down with a scathing look. "Here. Put this on. When you're ready, I'll keep the rest of your gear safe until you get back." And so saying, she handed Sigrid a folded packet of cloth.

Sigrid unfolded it gingerly and when she saw what it was, she looked up at Delphine with a horrified look. "_No_. You've _got_ to be kidding me. How am I supposed to fight in this… this… _thing_?"

"You need to look the part," Delphine repeated simply. "There's too much riding on this mission to allow the guards room to suspect _anything_. You'll have to make do."

It was not just party clothes. It was a _dress_. And not just any dress. It was an elaborate, high-necked affair: the heavily embroidered cloth would reach all the way up to her chin, effectively covering her tattoos. The sleeves were also extremely long, and ended in fluffy lace bells that would flounce delicately around her hands, hiding the scars and ink there. She could already tell that the dress itself was cut to emphasize her assets, or lack thereof, darting in at the waist and then flowing out again. At least there were slits up the sides of the legs, almost to the thighs, so that she could wear a pair of equally embellished leggings beneath them, and allow _some_ movement. The colors were brilliant pinks and reds, with shiny gold sewn into the hems, and the entire effect was like a Mara's-day card gone awry. The slippers that came with it were also a ridiculous affair, delicate little silk things that wouldn't last a block's walk in the city, let alone in battle. At least Malborn had her boots…"If the Thalmor don't kill you, I'm going to," Sigrid promised, as she ducked behind the windmill again, stripping quickly and struggling into the awful dress.

She was thankful she couldn't see herself. It was probably horrifying.

"Come here," Delphine said, and spat into a handkerchief, rubbing the warpaint from Sigrid's eyes, ignoring her spluttered protests and attempt to push the offending hand away; the vise-like grip on her shoulder prevented Sigrid from jerking away. She stepped back to survey her handiwork, and smiled. "Hmmm. I guess that will have to do. You should pass for a real guest, at least until you open your mouth. Ready to board the carriage to the embassy?"

"I'm ready," Sigrid said, scowling.

"Just make sure you get back out of there alive with the information we need," Delphine said, and the smile faded, replaced with that tired look. "Good luck."

"I'm going to need it," she muttered, as she lifted herself into the back of the carriage and settled down for the ride. The driver looked at her stormy expression and ridiculous outfit, and grinned. She attempted Vilkas' quelling gaze upon him, but it did not work. The man was a chatty thing, eager to ask who she was and where she was going. Sigrid answered in gruff one-word responses that gave as little information as possible, and when he said, "That's _quite_ a dress, milady," she refused to talk to him anymore. Thankfully, the ride was over soon, and as the carriage pulled up the snow-covered mountain she was already bolting from it before it had stopped moving. Her slippered feet slid on the ground as she jumped down from the cart, and a bearded Redguard man caught her.

"Whoa there!" he said. "Ahhh, a fellow latecomer to Elenwen's little soiree, and arriving by carriage, no less! I salute you, miss."

"Thank you," she said.

He grinned tipsily at her, showing a flash of white teeth, and went on: "My lateness is due more to getting lost on the way up this _gods-forsaken_ mountain than to any desire to actually _arrive_ late. I prefer to arrive early, often the day before the party, so as not to miss out on any of the drinking."

"A wise policy," she murmured, removing her arm from his grasp, and approaching the stairs up to the embassy. The Thalmor soldier standing beside the stairs, held up his hand and fixed her with a superior golden gaze.

"Welcome to the Thalmor Embassy," he said, not sounding welcome in the least, "Your invitation, _please_."

"Here you go," Sigrid said, and handed him the paper that Delphine had given her, the excitement rumbling through her stomach. Would it work? Would it be believable? Did she honestly look like a Thalmor toady, as opposed to a ridiculous birthday cake?

The soldier scanned it carefully, and then nodded at her. "Thank you, ma'am. Go right in."

As she walked up the stairs, she could hear the Redguard behind her, drawling, "Now here's _my_ invitation. I don't have a poisoned dagger strapped to my thigh, _et cetera, et cetera_." She ascended the stairs and opened the door, and saw across the room, a rail-thin Altmer woman with cadaverous cheekbones approaching her. From the fine clothes and the air of command about her, Sigrid knew this must be Elenwen, the ambassador. Her scrupulously polite gaze raked over Sigrid, but instead of making a snide remark, she said in her nasal, drawling accent: "_Welcome_. I don't believe we've met. I am Elenwen, the Thalmor ambassador to Skyrim. And _you_ are…?"

Sigrid thought quickly: like hell was she going to tell an Altmer anything about her. Give the woman anything to hang her with. Instead, she plastered a brilliant, fake smile on her lips and cooed, matching insincerity for insincerity, "So _you're_ Elenwen? I've heard _so_ much about you."

"_Have_ you, now…?" Elenwen said, frowning at Sigrid as though trying to figure out where she had seen her before. "All _good_, I trust? But you have me at a disadvantage. I'm afraid I know _nothing_ about you… _please_, tell me more about yourself? What brings you to this… to Skyrim?" she did not even bother to conceal the disdain in her voice, and Sigrid fantasized, briefly, about grinding her face into the mud and making her eat her words. She was saved from having to answer, however, for Elenwen's attention abruptly snapped away. "_What_ is it, Malborn?"

"It's just that we've run out of the Alto wine, madame," Malborn said from his vantage point behind the bar. He did not even look at Sigrid, gave no indication that they had met before. "It's just that we've run out of the Alto wine, do I have your permission to uncork the red…?"

"Of course," Elenwen snapped, "I've told you before not to bother me with such trifles."

"Yes, madame ambassador," Malborn replied humbly.

"My apologies," Elenwen said to her, "We'll have to get better acquainted later. _Please_, enjoy yourself." And she swept off regally to talk to one of the party guests.

Sigrid approached the bar, making a show of looking at the different varieties of alcohol on display. "I'm ready," she whispered to him.

"Let me see if we have another bottle of that!" he exclaimed loudly, as he bustled around, and then whispered, "I'll be waiting by the door after you cause a distraction."

"Right," she whispered back, then said loudly, "I'd like a drink."

"The finest Colovian brandy, madame?" Malborn said, gesturing to the dark glass bottle.

"Thank you," she said, with her best regal sniff, and then swept off to eye the room. She did not recognize most of the party guests, though she knew they must have been highly ranked enough to warrant an invitation. No wonder Elenwen had looked at her with such interest. She obviously didn't belong, for all her invitation and Delphine's _fine clothes_. The lace made her hands itch madly as she walked through the ballroom, trying to size up the guests and decide who would be the best distraction. And then she caught sight of the Redguard she'd run into outside, and made a beeline for him. With his gregarious personality, he would be perfect…if she could just convince him to risk his neck.

He looked around blearily, and growled, "What does a fellow need to do to get a drink around here? Ah, pardon me, friend, I didn't see you standing there."

"That's quite all right," she said politely, and sat down next to him.

"Allow me to introduce myself," he said, extending his hand. She shook it; his fingers, a little clammy, lingered a bit too long. "Razelan. Imports and exports by trade; observer of human nature by avocation."

"Here's a drink, if you'd like it," she said, extending the bottle towards him. His eyes lit up avariciously when he saw it, and even more so when he smelled it. The Colovian brandy had a distinctive smoky scent, and was both expensive and highly sought after.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, as he took both the bottle and an experimental, exhaling a blissful breath. "The one generous soul amongst a gathering of pinch-pennies and _lick-spittles_. If there's _anything_ I can ever do for you do _not_ hesitate to call on me," he slurred.

"Actually…" she said, taking a gamble, "There is something you can do for me."

"Wonderful! I can begin to repay your generosity immediately! Say on, friend."

"I need you to cause a scene. Get everyone's attention for just a few minutes." Sigrid kept one eye on the Thalmor soldier standing near their bench. She didn't think he had overheard, but it did not pay to be cautious.

"Is that _all_?" Razelan said, and shook his head. "My friend, you've come to the right person. You could say that causing a scene is somewhat of a _specialty_ of mine. Stand back and behold my handiwork!"

"Thank you," she said.

As she watched, he lurched to his feet and stumbled into the center of the room. "Attention everyone! Could I have your attention, _please_. I propose a toast! To Elenwen! Our mistress! Figuratively, of course, nothing more, she would never want to get in bed with…" The Thalmor soldier's attention was now solidly upon Razelan, and she took the opportunity to slide from the bench and hurry towards the bar, where Malborn was waiting near the door.

"Let's go before someone notices us," he said urgently, and she followed him. In the background, Razelan was yelling, "…then, most of you are already in bed with her, but _again_, I speak _figuratively_, of course…" The hallway was lined with boxes and barrels, and Malborn whispered, "So far so good, but let's hope nobody saw us slip out. We need to pass through kitchen—your gear is in the larder. Stay close and let me do the talking." The hall curved around and then opened in a large, bright kitchen, which smelled delightful. An Elsweyr fondue bubbled on the table and Sigrid's stomach growled, thinking of the last time she'd eaten one—two years ago, in Elsweyr itself—and how delicious it had been.

Behind the table, a female Khajit was chopping onions viciously. She looked up and hissed at them. "Who comes, Malborn? You know I don't like strange smells in my kitchen." Her brilliant cat's eyes looked suspiciously at Sigrid, and she wondered whether the Khajit could smell the wolf in her.

"A guest, feeling ill," Malborn coaxed, "Leave the poor wretch be." Sigrid did her best to look ill, and found that thinking about the dress helped quite a bit. She turned sad eyes on the Khajit, wordlessly pleading to be allowed through.

"A guest in the kitchens? You know this is against the rules," the cat said.

"Rules, is it, Tsavani?" Malborn said regally, lifting his chin. "I didn't realize that eating the moon sugar was permitted. Perhaps I should ask the ambassador?"

Tsavani spat in disgust and waved her paw at them. "Get out of here!" she snapped. "I saw nothing!"

Malborn hustled her through the kitchen and into yet another hallway, closing the door behind him. When she looked at him in the dim hallway light, she saw that he was sweating. He rubbed his eyes and whispered, "Your gear is in the chest. I'll lock the door behind you. _Don't_ screw this up. If someone misses me at the party, we're _both_ dead."

"Don't worry," Sigrid said. "It will only take a second." But with a sinking feeling, she realized that she had not thought to give him another change of clothes, perhaps having assumed that the clothes Delphine provided her would not be quite so ridiculous. She had no choice: she sighed and strapped her cuirass and backplate on over the ridiculous dress, shucked the slippers and shoved her feet into her steel boots, and set her helmet over her head, her gauntlets over the lacey sleeve openings. She could only imagine how insane she looked, especially when she tried to get her hand through the strap of her shield and the lace ripped, and belted her sword belt and scabbard about her waist. When she looked up, she could see Malborn looking at her with an expression of despair, as though he did not believe anyone dressed as she did could possibly succeed.

"Gods speed," he said sadly, as she went through the door.

Sigrid found herself in a hallway with two open doors on either side, voices coming from the door on the left. She crept forward as quietly as she could, sword drawn already. One soldier was saying to the other, "Did you see those robes march in this morning? Who're they with? More of the emissary's threat enforcers?"

"No," another soldier grunted. "High mages, just in from Alinor. I guess Herself is finally getting worried about all the dragon attacks."

Sigrid frowned: if the Thalmor were behind the dragon attacks, why would their soldiers be complaining or worried about them? She had a sinking feeling that Delphine was wrong…but perhaps there was still information to be found. In any event, she would now have to fight her way out. She licked her lips: that, at least, she could do.

"Ah, good. I've been wondering how we were supposed to defend this place—"

She took that moment to attack, lunging around the door and stabbing one of the soldiers in the side, between the grooves of his armor. He looked up, shocked, and both of them stared at her as though unsure whether to laugh or attack her. They evidently decided on the latter: and a blast of fire washed across her as they both came at her, swords drawn. She took a deep breath and drew on the Voice; she had no time to waste here. The more she would think about it later, the more it would worry her how easy it was to draw on that power. But for now, she let the thu'um rise in her throat as she sent both elves sprawling, neatly decapitating one as he fell, and slashing a deep gash through the other one's face.

She screamed in pain as lightning shocked her, the pain crackling across her skin, and looked up to see a Thalmor wizard in hooded robes rushing down the stairs screaming, "Don't you see? Elven supremacy is the only truth!" He raised his hands to shock her again and desperately, she smashed him in the face with her shield, shocking him into falling, blood streaming from his nose. And as he did, screaming, "Ugh, that's it, that's your best?," his voice muffled by the blood, her blade found his throat, cutting it cleanly open. His corpse fell.

She took the time to loot the corpses quickly, just in case there was any information available upon them, but found nothing except some gold, which she pocketed. Cautiously, she crept up the stairs, but the upper level of the embassy seemed empty. A quick check through the rooms revealed some books, though no information about dragons. Just because it was there, she wiped her bloody sword on an extremely expensive velvet coverlet on one of the beds, and for good measure, spat on it. While generally, she had nothing against elves, or even Altmer—she had fought against them and beside them for years—she despised the Thalmor. They deserved any inconvenience she could offer them.

As she went back into the hall, she found it ended in a door that, presumably, led back out to a courtyard of some sort. She opened it quietly, half-waiting for a rusty creak, and found herself on a balcony with graduating sets of stairs. It was covered in a light dusting of snow, and voices from the other side of the low stone wall told her she was not alone. _Here goes nothing_… she thought, and in a movement that was not as smooth as she would have liked, hampered by her dress, she clambered up the wall and lept down into the court, landing in the middle of a group of three Thalmor soldiers, all of whom stared at her as if she were an apparition sent by Sheogorath himself.

The stunned silence was broken as all three conjured bound swords and attacked her at once. "Behold the future! Behold the Thalmor!" one of them growled. She caught one on her shield, and ducking, weaving, managed to cause one of the soldiers to stab his comrade through the heart with that crackling electric sword.

The other one screamed in rage and ran for her, and praying for Ysmir to forgive her, Sigrid breathed _yol_ at him and he screamed again, this time in pain, his hair and eyebrows burning. She pivoted, foot lashing out to kick him in the shins. As he went down the sword whipped around,taking a chunk from his vulnerable neck. The third leapt at her, and she set him aflame too, watching him burn as she caught her breath. _Holy shit_, she thought. _Sigrid, what's wrong with you?_ She put him out of his misery, quickly, his corpse flopping into the snow. It was over even before she had realized it had begun, and now she eyed a small building that must be Elenwen's solar. Perhaps the information she needed would be there. Slinging the shield back over her shoulder, she ran for the door, just in case the noise had alerted any more guards, and opened the door as slowly and quietly as possible. She found herself behind a Thalmor soldier, who was watching a dispute between a wizard and a human, and took the opportunity to lunge forward, clapping her free hand over the woman's mouth, the sword flying up to cut her throat. The body fell.

A ratty looking man was pleading, "But I need that money! I earned it!"

The Thalmor in wizard's robes lifted his chin. "Do not _presume_, Gissur. You are most useful, but do _not_ presume. We have other informants who are less… offensive."

At that point both men turned, saw her standing above the dead soldier, and rushed her in concert, the wizard screaming, "Death is the only way out of your misery!"

"Now now," Sigrid said, as she kicked Gissur to the ground, "I know it's a terrible dress but I _can_ take it off later. You don't have to _kill_ me over it." By now she had gotten into a rhythm of it, swinging the shield off of her shoulder and swinging it around to crush the Thalmor wizard's skull before he could so much as shock her. And the man, before he could stab her in the back, as he tried to do. There was a key on the wizard's body, along with gold, and she took them as she found a set of stairs the the corner, and a door hidden below them. She slung the sword back over her shield and tested the key—it fit, and she heard the click of a lock mechanism, door swinging open.

She found herself on a balcony that overlooked a torture chamber, with numerous cells and some empty torture instruments, stained with blood, centered in pride-of-place. Perhaps she was growing closer now. As she flipped through a book on the balcony table, someone downstairs called nervously, "Is somewhere there?" The Thalmor soldier rushed up the stairs toward her, and she took a deep breath and used the Voice to throw the elf from the balcony. The body landed with a thud and a snap: the fall had broken her neck. Sigrid peered over the edge to make sure she wasn't still moving, then made her way down into the chamber proper.

In one of the cells, an emaciated Breton, his chest bleeding and scarred from the interrogations, hung from shackles on the wall, with his eyes closed. He wasn't sleeping; Sigrid recognized his posture as one who had been tortured into exhaustion. Hatred of the elves rumbled through her; though both sides of the Civil War had tortured their prisoners, there was something about the casual way that the Thalmor had left him here that rankled. As she opened the door to his cell, he sighed, though he spoke without opening his eyes. "I told you… I don't know anything else about it."

"I'm not here to torture you," she said, kneeling next to him and examining the shackles. They were not even tightly fastened, his torturers must have relied on his state of exhaustion and the guards to ensure that he did not run.

"What?" his eyes flew open, such as they could, for both had been blacked severely, almost swollen shut. "Who…then what do you want then?"

"No time to explain," she said, as she wrenched the shackles apart with her bare hands, the metal rusted almost to Oblivion. "Give me a moment to look around, I need to find something first…"

"Yeah, sure, okay," he murmured, rubbing his wrists and wincing again as the blood rushed back to his limbs. "This way is a trap door. Come on, this way. I've seen the guards use it to get rid of bodies so it must lead somewhere… Shit, it's locked."

Privately, Sigrid was not so sure, but was willing to chance it. "Give me a moment." In the corner, next to a table of torture instruments lovingly laid out and shined to perfection, she found a chest, and opened it. Within were a number of bound and handwritten books, and she flipped through them eagerly, eyes widening. _Ulfric Stormcloak…_ she read, her eyes glancing over the page and widening even further, _asset… captured and interrogated…_ Though she did not have the time to read the rest, she slid it into her bag and started on another, which read _Delphine_. Hurriedly, she skimmed that as well, and whistled when she read: _…she evaded three attempts on her life, in one case killing an entire assassination team._ It seemed as though the woman was telling the truth about the Blades at least. Sigrid pocketed that book as well and started on the last, and muttered, "Bingo" as she read it: the Thalmor were looking for another Blade, named Esbern, because they suspected he knew something about the dragon attacks.

"Thanks for springing me," the prisoner was whispering. "I owe you, look me up in Riften if you need to…"

As he spoke, they both heard footsteps on the stairs and the sound of voices. She held a finger to her lips and darted across the interrogation room floor before anyone could look over the balcony and see her, up the stairs. At the top, she found Malborn, escorted by two Thalmor soldiers. The relief on his face when he saw her was almost criminal.

"What are you doing down here?" one of the soldiers gasped, and lunged for her. The fight was short and brutal, and even Malborn joined in, though he was unarmed, pounding his fists into one of the soldier's faces. At the end, two bodies joined the first on the floor: Sigrid had managed to knock the soldiers from the balcony with a combination of shield and brute force. To use her sword in such close quarters would have risked killing Malborn as well, when he was so intent on joining in the fight. She knelt and fumbled through their pockets, finding a new key.

"Come on, Malborn," she said. "I think this might be the key to an escape route."

"I'm gods-damned glad to see you," he said fervently, and followed her back down the stairs to the trap door, where the man she'd rescued waited for them. There was a tense moment as she tried the new key in the lock, and a collective sigh of relief as it opened. She did not, however, smell the whiff of fresh air, as she had hoped. They found a little hall, shored up by timbers, hanging moss covering them. The smell of rotting flesh and carrion floated into the room, and Malborn gagged. Sigrid dropped into the hall, inching forward, and heard a tell-tale roar: troll.

The prisoner and Malborn both ran ahead of her, eager to escape, and she tried to warn them in time: _wait!_ It was sheer suicide to rush past a troll without the proper armor, as Malborn, unfortunately found out. Though she ran to protect him, it was too late: with a vicious slash of one heavy arm, the troll batted him to the ground, crushing his skull. The other prisoner was luckier: he made it through the door while Malborn had distracted the monster. Sigrid decided, in that split second, to make a run for it: she did not feel like fighting a troll in this party dress. And she bolted for freedom, following the prisoner into the light of early morning.

* * *

><p>Farkas and Vilkas had found that their latest assignment was rather dull; though they were guarding a valuable shipment, most of the bandits on the road had taken one look at the pair of imposing brothers and decided that there were easier targets. Vilkas sighed; he hated the assignments where their only purpose was to glower at things and look dangerous. Any hired thug could do the same. The very least that a criminal could have done was give him the opportunity for a good fight along the way. After having dropped the merchant off safely at the gates of Solitude, the brothers took their hired horses out for a walk through the snow, ostensibly to admire the scenery, but really to check the might of the Thalmor embassy and get an eye on the numbers in their barracks. Kodlak had told Vilkas to look before they left: he had the suspicion that the next great conflict in Skyrim was going to involve the Thalmor, no matter the result of the ongoing civil hostilities.<p>

And so that was how they found themselves riding through the woods outside the embassy early one morning when they witnessed a most startling sight. A sudden commotion from the other side of the building made Vilkas raise his eyes and glance at his brother, who nodded, and they sped towards the sight of the clamor. What they found was truly mind-boggling: a number of Thalmor soldiers, both firing arrows from the edge of the battlements, others climbing over the stones. A frost troll, roaring, as it chased its prey.

And the prey: a woman dressed in battered steel armor and an unfortunately hideous party dress, a riot of red, pink, and gold, running like mad for her life. She had hiked the skirt up and was holding it in one hand as she ran through the snow, and he could see that she was also wearing steel armored boots. The effect was ridiculous, but hilarious: with a determined look upon her brilliantly red face, the woman ran like an athelete, not anyone who would have been caught dead in such an ensemble. He could make out lace exploding from beneath the gauntlets she wore over the dress. _What the hell_…? he wondered, but the brothers sprang into action, with the reasoning that any enemy of the Thalmor was a friend of theirs. Farkas rode for the woman while Vilkas took the troll: the greatsword swinging easily from his vantage point, separating the troll's head from its body. He saw that Farkas had managed to grab the woman by the armpits and haul her onto the horse, awkwardly positioned as she was. There was no time to think: the soldiers were closing in.

"Ride!" Vilkas roared, and together they rode away.

It was only later, when they were a little farther away, that Farkas realized who, exactly, they had rescued, and broke into guffawing roars.

"Now _this_ is going to be a tale I want to hear from start to finish, shield-sister," Farkas managed, between uncontrollable laughter.

Vilkas could only shake his head: of course. He should have known. The Divines could not have planned it better.

"I'll tell you all in time," Sigrid mumbled, from her awkward position on the horse, "As soon as I can get _out of this damned dress_."

"And we outpace the Thalmor," Vilkas pointed out.

"Of course," Farkas said, wiping a tear from his eye. "Oh, things have been interesting since you came to us, my friend…"


	17. Memories

**AN: **Thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far, your comments make my day! As ever, any constructive criticism is also welcome. I took a few liberties with the side quest for the sake of the story, though it will diverge a bit more next chapter. ALSO, this file is now officially 100,000 words... how crazy is that? Thanks for stickin' with me.

* * *

><p><em>A twelfth I know: if I see in a tree<br>a corpse from a halter hanging,  
>such spells I write, and paint in runes,<br>that the being descends and speaks._

—The Poetic Edda, from _Hávamál_, translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>Sigrid wondered whether it would be possible to slip into a hole in the ground and have the earth close over her head. She could only imagine what she looked like: thrown over the pommel of a saddle, trying not to throw up as the horse's jolting run shook the ground below her, and her arse in the air, exposing the back of the ridiculous dress. Though the first few minutes of flight from the Thalmor embassy were tense, eventually they lost their pursuers, and Sigrid thought that perhaps they might have been called back to lock down the embassy in case further intruders remained inside. That is what she would have done had she been in Elenwen's situation, finding the corpses of her men littered across her bedroom. She had no time to worry about the pursuers, however, and was forced instead to concentrate on not falling off of the horse, though Farkas had one arm holding her still.<p>

Thankfully, they stopped a little before Dawnstar to give the horses a rest and allow her to change. She half-slid and half-fell from the back of the horse, landing in a heap on the ground, her stomach aching and her feet tingling as the blood returned to them. Farkas helped her up, though she could see that both he and his brother were struggling to hold back their laughter at the ridiculous spectacle she presented.

"I have an extra pair of clothes in my pack that you can use instead of… er… that," Vilkas said, as he rummaged through the horse's saddle bags, "That's a very, ah, interesting choice of clothing. Didn't know you had it in you."

"I think you look very nice, shield-sister," Farkas said solemnly. "The pink really draws out your eyes. The lace is very pretty."

"What an inspired pairing of armor and lace," Vilkas added, all innocence, "I imagine it will be taking the fashion of Solitude by storm."

"If either of you tell _anyone_ about this," Sigrid said darkly, "I'll string you _both_ up by your ankles."

"I was being serious," Farkas replied, sounding injured, and turned away as Vilkas handed her the change of clothes.

Vilkas had no such compunctions, eyes fixed upon her intently, a smirk on his face as he watched her remove first the outer layer of armor, and then struggle with the dress. It had numerous tiny buttons that ran up the back, and he seemed to be greatly enjoying her struggle with them. Several times her fingers fumbled with the small, polished bits of wood, slipping through her grasp. Eventually Sigrid gave up and ripped the entire dress from the neck down, buttons popping and seams splitting. _It's not like I'll ever wear this again_, she thought, struggling out of the constricting fabric and the leggings, and sliding with a sigh of relief into Vilkas' shirt and breeches. Though they were about the same height, he was heavier than she, and the clothes fit a bit loosely, especially with her bound chest. Anything, however, was preferable to that awful dress, which currently lay in a colorful heap on the snow.

"I want to burn that damned thing," she said, and spat on it, then kicked snow over its colorful form, obscuring it beneath the white.

"What in Oblivion were you up to, Sigrid?" Farkas asked, frowning at her, now that it was safe to turn around.

"Yes," Vilkas said, voice drawling along the words, "What _were_ you up to?"

As she shoved her feet into her boots and settled the shell of her armor over her shoulders, Sigrid agonized over how much to tell them. Both men looked at her expectantly, Farkas with mere intense curiosity, but Vilkas with a dangerously cool expression, as though he were expecting some kind of lie. At what point could she begin to trust the Companions? Part of her felt she owed it to Farkas, if only because he had been such a strangely understanding sounding board when she'd needed it, but the old suspicious part of her railed against it. But Vilkas knew _what_ she was, and had not used the information against her yet… And so Sigrid took a deep breath, and said in a rush, "I broke into the Thalmor embassy so I could try and find out whether they know anything about the dragons returning." And she buckled on her sword belt, feeling like herself again.

"Oh, of course," Vilkas said, rolling his eyes heavenward. "As you do on a quiet Sundas afternoon when you're bored. You _what_?"

"You're lucky you got out alive," Farkas said, frowning as she picked up her own small satchel, which held the information she'd stolen, and slung it over her shoulder.

"Like a few elves could stop _me_," Sigrid said.

"You'd better hope no one got a good look at your face," Vilkas said, his voice deadly calm. "They'll follow you to the ends of Tamriel, if they have to. Even to Jorrvaskr. They won't easily forgive such an insult."

"I didn't have a choice. If I'm going to stop the dragons, I need to know why they're coming back. And how."

Vilkas' eyes narrowed. "And you decided that the Thalmor knew something of it, just like that."

"No," she admitted.

"So why infiltrate their embassy? That's not a decision one makes lightly." His voice, still, had the pronounced calm of barely contained fury, though she had no idea why: was he _worried_? About _her_? Or about the Thalmor coming for the Companions? She couldn't read him at all: his face remained expressionless, and the only thing she could gather from the smell of him was that he was livid. The stench of his fury choked her, constricting her lungs. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Farkas watching them with an expression that seemed to waver between amusement and consternation, as though he wasn't sure whether to step between them.

"That I can't tell you," she said. "More lives than mine rest on the information."

"Oh," Vilkas said quietly, voice biting. "Because you don't _trust_ us? Even now?"

"No!" she said, frustrated. Would he always be so determined to interpret her words in exactly the wrong light? "That's not the reason at all. But this person has trusted me with their identity and I will not betray that trust. And I told you _why_ I was there—isn't that enough?" She spat on the ground again and snapped, "No, of course it isn't. Nothing is ever enough for you."

For a moment she thought that he might continue to argue, but instead, his eyes merely narrowed and he turned away. "We should keep moving," he said to Farkas, who shot Sigrid an apologetic glance, "You're due back in Whiterun, brother."

"And you're not?" Sigrid asked. He ignored her, and she sighed. One step forward, two steps back, it seemed.

"Vilkas is headed to Windhelm," Farkas said helpfully as they walked the horses up the road, the little dark blob of Dawnstar in the distance, "Special mission. And I'm back to Whiterun, for it doesn't do to leave Jorrvaskr too empty for long."

Dawnstar was, then, merely the stopping-off point for the evening. They tethered the horses outside of the Windpeak Inn and made their way inside, Vilkas going to negotiate the payment for the evening while Sigrid and Farkas took the measure of the inn. It was small but warm, though the inhabitants seemed strangely exhausted, sitting listlessly at the bar and drinking their evening nightcap. The food was decent enough however, and the three Companions remained in the dining hall until later that evening, enjoying a leisurely dinner. Vilkas and Farkas discussed Companions business, including reshuffling assignments now that Skjor was gone. Sigrid did not participate, and instead sat in frustrated silence until they retired for the evening, to a small room with three beds shoved in awkwardly together, one against each wall and a third bunked atop the left bed, and frowned.

Tomorrow, she would go to Winterhold.

* * *

><p>He did not sleep restfully, though he could not remember his dreams. Though rarely troubled by nightmares, whenever he did have them, they remained for the rest of the day like a miasma before him. Even so, he was relieved to wake in the morning, stretching out his leaden limbs. When he opened his eyes, he saw that Sigrid, who had been sleeping in the top bunk, was already gone—<em>of course,<em> he thought sourly to himself. Farkas, on the other hand, was still asleep in his little cot, too large for it by far, legs hanging over the edge as he snored. Vilkas shook his head; his brother already had plans to take the horses back to Whiterun, while he would continue on foot to Windhelm. He dressed and gathered up his things, quickly, and left Farkas to his sleep, sure that his twin would understand that he had gotten a head start. He wasn't going to let her run away again, not this time.

He caught up with her on the road south out of Dawnstar, dressed in her armor, his clothes, and carrying only the small satchel. The snow was falling heavily, and she had no shelter, not even a sleeping fur, with her—was she suicidal, or just insane? Whatever she was, she was still furious with him, for she did not so much turn around to see who was following her. He fell in step with her, and she continued to ignore him, striding forward confidently down the road, whistling a jaunty tune as though she were totally alone in the snowstorm. He rolled his eyes; if she wanted to play games like a child, he would play along. They walked in silence for what seemed a long time, before finally, he gave in and asked, "Where are you going?"

"Fort Fellhammer," she replied.

"Of course," he said, unable to keep the dripping sarcasm from his voice. "Are you planning to interrogate some Thalmor soldiers once you're there? Perhaps question the Emperor himself?"

"No," she said, shortly. "If you're going to be an ass, then I'd appreciate if you left me alone and went on to Windhelm."

He took a deep breath and tried again. "Why are you going to Fort Fellhammer?"

She glanced sideways at him and gray eyes met gray, hers wary, his merely tired. "Aela."

Vilkas swore under his breath, but did not falter in his steps. "Of course," he growled. "What has she asked you to do?"

"Leave no one alive," Sigrid said.

Of course Aela would have asked such a thing. After she'd been confined to Jorrvaskr, unable to wreck her vengeance the way that she wanted to, the way her blood called for her to, she'd secured a proxy. What truly infuriated him, though, was that the loss of Skjor was not enough. That she would risk a similar outcome with another Companion in order to satisfy her lust for blood-payment. To send anyone to face the Silver Hand, alone, after what had happened… She should not have done it. But he was not surprised that she had. And as furious he had been with Sigrid earlier, he could not let her face this alone. He would not have another Skjor on his conscience. All he said, however, was: "I'm going with you."

She looked at him sharply. "Are you, now."

"Yes."

To his surprise, she smiled suddenly, a small twitch of the corner of her mouth. "All right, then. Just make sure you stay out of my way."

"Make sure I don't have to carry you out," he retorted, "I don't have a horse this time."

Sigrid sniffed, then held up her hand. "We're getting close. We'll sneak around the side; the main gate is on the southern wall of the fort," she said, and drew her sword. He followed her through the gradually-thinning trees and up the side of the hill, jogging through the snow until she met the stone wall of the fort, hugging closely to it so that a sentry standing atop the wall looking out would not see them coming across the white expanse. He let her take the lead, and as she rushed through the open gate and leapt upon the surprised Silver Hand bandit sitting by its side, covered her back. As more of the Hand swarmed them, he found himself standing back-to-back with her as they fended off a flurry of silver. As always fighting with her, whether against her or in battle by her side, left him with a strange feeling: the ease of it, the way that she seemed to know exactly where her blade needed to be, where her body needed to be. Her foot lashed out to trip a man who tried to rush them from the side, and Vilkas, with a sweep of his sword, finished him.

He was barely breathing hard by the time they cleared the lower courtyard and took the stairs two at a time to catch the archer at the top before he could fire another missile; an elbow to the face and a shove off the parapet took care of that. Sigrid caught up to him, cheeks pink from the cold, her face strangely young without her usual black warpaint. "There's probably more in the garrison," she said, "Come on." He followed her again, through the door, into a small tower. The first room held only supplies and weapons, and from the second, he could hear a gruff "Who's there?" from a back room. As they glanced at each other, readying their weapons, a huge Nord in Silver Hand armor rushed at them with his war hammer drawn. In the narrow room, Vilkas wondered how they would be able to manage him without injuring each other, but to his surprise, Sigrid stepped forward in front of him, narrowed her eyes, and spoke three fell words: _fus ro dah_.

The resulting explosion deafened him: the Words themselves echoed as though shouted from every angle, a concussive force that threw the man like a rag doll against the wall and knocked all of the books and dishes from the shelves in a crash of falling wood and porcelain. Before the man could recover she was on him, the sword impaling him through the throat. He gurgled and fell still, and Sigrid rocked back onto her heels, tugging her sword free and cleaning it on his body. When she looked up again, she could not quite meet his eye. He could still feel the echo of the dragon magic in the room, ancient, smelling of fire and smoldering coals and hunger. "That was the Voice?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, sounding troubled. He extended a hand, and to his surprise, she took it, allowing him to help her to her feet, fingers brushing his as she pulled away. Her voice was distant, almost as though she was talking to herself, as she continued: "It's much…easier now. To use it. To not feel so—so guilty." She looked up at him suddenly, with eyes full of a fathomless emotion—if he didn't know her any better, he would have said that it was fear. "It's going to change me. Being Dovahkiin."

If that stench of magic was a hint, a shade of what she felt every time that she Spoke, he wasn't surprised that she was terrified. Such a thing could easily swallow you up. Things began to slip into place, just then. He could not think of anything to say in response to her words, not at first. Instead, he reached out to her, impulsively, his big hands gripping her arms below the shoulder plates of the armor; he could feel the tense muscles in them, hunching her forward. "That's what I thought, when I first took the beast-blood."

"And did it? Change you?" she asked. It was a strange moment, stripped of the sarcasm and suspicion of most of their interactions, without any of the jostling for control, with only the feeling of her warm skin under his hands as she met his eyes with that troubled gaze.

"I don't know," he said honestly. "But I think that at the heart of things, I am still the same man I was always."

Instead of answering, she nodded, though both of them knew that for men and women of their ilk, that was not necessarily reassuring. She had seen the fury at the center of him, the burning fire, the savagery that would have been there whether he was a man or a wolf. She pulled out of his grip, using a quick search of the room for any plans as an excuse to avoid his eyes. Unsurprisingly, in such a small garrison, there was nothing to be found except a few coin purses in a chest, and a number of books on werewolves, one of which was entitled _Physicalities of Werewolves_, by Reman Crex.

"You don't want to read that," he said.

"Why not?" she said, flipping it open anyway and peering at the text.

"Trust me. It's… disturbing." He had come across the book carried by various Silver Hand members across the years. It was a small monogram written by a man who, judging by the insanely ruthless and clinical way that he performed his vivisections on werewolf captives, had to be a mage. He wrote in detail in a small, cramped hand about the various experiments he had performed—most of his subjects had not lived long, and so there were many separate subjects. He had rubbed them with wolfsbane; he had sliced the muscles from their limbs to see whether the change continued after parts were separated from bodies. He could see that she did not listen to him, however, and he could see her lip curl up in disgust before dropping the book as though it had burned her. "I warned you," he said.

"You were right. Come on. There's nothing left for us here."

She followed him from the garrison and into the chilly morning air, and he heard her inhale deeply, as though the fresh air would cleanse her of what had happened inside. He wondered whether it would work.

"So," she said, as they walked down the stairs and into the courtyard, "We're going to Windhelm, huh?"

"We?" he asked, a bit suspicious despite himself.

She raised her eyebrows at him, smiled just a little uncertainly; "I couldn't let a shield-sibling head into a fight by alone now, could I?"

"Ysgramor's balls," he said, "The dragon blood _did_ change you." A flash of teeth, a grin. "I like it."

She punched him in the arm, hard, but he only laughed. "Asshole," she mumbled, but it lacked venom. There was an uneasy feeling in his stomach, now, that they had crossed some sort of line, but try as he might, he could not figure out where the line was drawn, or what it meant.

Together they began the long walk to Windhelm.

* * *

><p>As they walked, he filled her in on the mission: the information he had discovered from Heddic Bog-Trotter and further inquiries in Solitude about Bern Golden-Fingers' business habits. "And a shipment is coming in tonight," Vilkas said.<p>

"And we're going to stop it?"

"We're not just going to stop it," he replied. "Golden-Fingers always comes down to the docks, personally, to inspect the goods. We're going to destroy the shipment and we're going to kill him. And we're going to leave him as a warning to the Silver Hand, should they try and find another…financier."

"He won't be alone, I'm assuming."

"No. Guards, of course. But that shouldn't be a problem for _you_, O mighty warrior."

"I don't think I like this new sense of humor that you've developed," Sigrid muttered.

Since he had witnessed her use the Voice in Fort Fellhammer, something had given between them. It kept her on edge; she was used to his constant suspicion and fury. It seemed almost too much to hope for that he might understand that her actions were not always motivated by self-interest. That lately they had instead been driven by her flailing desire to come to terms with her destiny, as difficult as it was. And so, gingerly, she tested this new—not friendship, but companionship, as they left the road, following the path of the mountains' foot, east and gradually south. She found that she was enjoying the trip, even when they walked in silence, with only the noise of their feet crunching in the snow to break the quiet. He kept a quick pace, but she did not have trouble keeping up. Occasionally, she reached up to brush the snow from her hair and eyelashes, remembering winters spent with her father in these same mountains, creeping through the underbrush on her belly, breath hissing from her mouth as she stalked her prey, resisting the urge to push the snow away from her eyes. The memory tasted bittersweet as a snowberry.

There were a few hiccups in the road, of course: there always were, traveling in Skyrim. She found she almost looked forward to the distraction, laughing as a bear came barreling toward her, dancing just out of reach of its lumbering paws as she slashed at its face, slipping away when it roared and bit at her. "After dragons, you're not much of a challenge, boyo," she taunted the animal. Vilkas stepped in then, ending it with a stab of his sword, catching the bear in the heart. He looked at her with one raised eyebrow as if to ask _was that really necessary_? She made a rude gesture with her free hand and knelt to clean her sword. At one point, when a thief attempted to sneak up and stab her, they both whirled and cut him down almost as one.

The easy way they had fallen into a pattern, of walking and fighting, and silence, put her on edge again, made her remember the first man she'd fucked, an Alik'ir mercenary in Saemund's ragtag band of fighters. Even though she'd been only fifteen at the time, she remembered the fierce joy she'd found, realizing that two fighters who knew each other so well could operate like a well-oiled machine, like clockwork, two parts of a whole. In every other way, Shamar had been nothing like Vilkas; gregarious where this man was silent, boasting where Vilkas was quietly arrogant, and ultimately, a traitor, while Vilkas seemed to be loyal to a fault. But she had found that quiet ease, that clockwork grace, with only a few men and women since she had cut Shamar's throat herself. And it never boded well for the future. _You watch yourself, Sigrid_, she thought. _You watch _him.

By the time they reached Windhelm, the sun had retreated beneath the horizon and the night had chased away the golden glow of the sunset. The new moons left the sky dark except for the faint stars, obscured beneath snow clouds. "We'll catch them on the docks. Luckily for us, our friend Bern pays off the guard that patrols there when his shipments come in—it will be only him, his two guards, and the sailors bringing in the boat. He's gotten cocky, thinking that his money will protect him."

"No witnesses?" Sigrid asked.

"None. The sailors are no innocents: that boat will be filled with the body parts of innocent men and women, readied to ship to Winterhold."

"Right," Sigrid replied. "You lead. I'll follow."

In the dark, it was not hard to loop around the city, avoiding the gates and heading straight for the docks. Sneaking through the shadows, they found no one yet there, finding a hiding spot behind a large pile of boxes waiting for shipment outside of one of the shipping offices. There they crouched, with only the lapping of the river and the harsh noise of their own breath in their ears to accompany them. Sigrid looked up sharply when she heard steps on the stone: a heavy man who smelled of incense and rich food and floral perfume, and sets of armored steps. She met Vilkas' eyes, gleaming in the dark, and smiled, tense with anticipation. There was an answering flash of teeth, a grin that had no place in the current situation. _We are too much alike_, she thought, with unease, before pushing the thought away to focus on their target.

"Damned unreliable sailors," the fat man was saying, his breath emerging in a slight wheeze of fury. "They should have been here by now."

"They'll be here, m'lord," one of the guards, sounding resigned to his toadying fate. "They always are."

"Unacceptable," Bern growled again, and they could hear him pacing back and forth, back and forth, until the sound of oars chopping through the water and ice. "Unacceptable!" he was screaming, now, at the sailors. "Late! Late! This shipment had better be _perfect_."

"Don't worry, fat man," said a Khajit, "Shipment is nice. Very nice. Now we will see whether your payment is so nice, this time, hmm?"

_Now_, Vilkas mouthed silently to her, and they moved.

What happened next seemed over even before it began. Vilkas lunged for Bern Gold-Fingers and cut his throat with a dagger even before the man had time to turn around, his blood leaking down his neck as he clutched at his throat and fell to the ground. After that everything was chaos: the guards, caught off guard, fumbled for their weapons and Vilkas, while Sigrid mercilessly came from behind, her sword a flurry of silver steel in the dim light of the dock. The Khajit had jumped from the dock and back into the boat, readying the oar along with his Imperial compatriot.

"No!" Vilkas growled.

She took a deep breath, and gave another little bit of her soul to the dragon. _"YOL!"_ The flames boiled up from her throat, and she could almost feel them laughing, felt a disturbing fierce joy as the boat caught fire, the flames licking up the wood and the men both. The khajit shrieked and jumped into the water to extinguish himself, but Vilkas hauled him out and cut his throat too, letting the body slip back into the water. The Imperial never had a chance, for the boat's contents had ignited and the fire flared intensely with a sudden, brilliant burst. Sigrid licked her lips as she hurriedly backed away from the fire, feeling as though she might vomit. The ease with which the flames had leapt from her, with which she found herself using the Voice, made her ill. Vilkas pushed the rowboat further out into the water and caught hold of her shoulder, growled, "Not now. No time for that. Come on. Into the city before anyone realizes what's happened here." She helped him throw Bern and his guards into the river, but not before looting his body for the keys to his home.

The entrance into the city was tense, but apparently no one had yet noticed the flaming boat that now drifted further down the river, presumably towards the larger ship from which it had ventured. The sleepy guard at the gate let them in without further questioning, and she sighed in relief as they walked across the courtyard toward the Candlehearth Inn, to sleep off the rest of the night, if she could. She felt the jumpy excitement she often had after a good fight, though it was tempered with guilt. She could think of a number of ways in which she could distract herself, however… But her wishes were not to come to fruition, for no sooner had they begun to head up the steps of the Inn, a sharp scream echoed in the stone city. Sigrid looked at Vilkas, and both warriors turned, running towards the noise.

* * *

><p>Sigrid did not catch the scent, but Vilkas smelled blood: new blood, fresh spilled, and a woman's. He followed the scent and the commotion to the cemetery, around the corner from the main square of the city. A gruesome tableau greeted them: the body of a woman, naked, sprawled atop a gravestone. Even from a distance, he could see that she was in a terrible state. She had been mutilated, chunks of flesh taken from her body, which was covered in blood. Next to the body stood a man in a Windhelm guard's uniform, a beggar dressed in rags, an older Imperial with a concerned expression on his face, and a priestess of Arkay, crouched next to the discarded frame of the girl. As they drew closer, he could smell something else: the foul stench of magic. Not any magic. Necromancy. It was familiar, like an old nightmare creeping up on him in the night, stale blood and rank secrets. The body practically radiated it.<p>

The guard looked up when he saw the two Companions walking down the stairs. "Hold it there!" he ordered, "Keep your distance."

"What happened here?" Sigrid asked. He could feel her tensed beside him, her pale eyes fixed on the shattered form.

"Another girl killed," the guard said, shaking his head. "Susanna, from Candlehearth Hall. Served me a drink just a few nights ago…but I can't say I knew her."

"Another?" Vilkas said, interrupting his reminiscence. "Has this happened before?"

"Susanna's the third," the guard said. "It's always the same; young girl, killed at night… body torn up. "

"Three women? Sounds like the guards haven't been doing their jobs," Sigrid said, her voice tight, drawn. He was surprised: for one who dealt in death like she did, the depth of her emotion over a woman she'd never met before in her life seemed out of character. But she was furious, and he wondered whether it wouldn't be a good idea to put his hand on her arm, to remind her that she couldn't just lunge for a guard in Windhelm, however much he might have deserved it.

The man was either nonplussed by her anger, or too oblivious to pick up on it. He shrugged, the torch bobbing with the movement of his arms. "We're stretched thin as it is with the war. Nobody has the time to spend on this. Not pleasant, but it's the truth."

"Why, you—" she began.

"Could you use some help?" Vilkas interrupted her, to cut her off from saying something she might regret later. That _he_ might regret later. She looked at him in surprise, eyes wide, but said nothing, thankfully.

"If you want to help, ask some of these gawkers if they saw anything useful. I'm going to examine the body before the rats can get to it," the guard said, all callousness.

He looked at the woman and she at him, and then nodded. Without a further word they split up to question the witnesses. He approached the older man, who looked up at him without curiosity, then at Sigrid, his expression becoming flat and unreadable when he looked at her strong form striding across the courtyard to question the beggar. "You," Vilkas said, drawing the man's attention back to him. He had a thin, drawn face and a hangdog look, as though life had dealt him a few too many rough hands. "What did you see?"

"I thought I saw a fellow running away," the man said, "But I couldn't get a good look at him."

"How long ago was this?" Vilkas asked. The stench of necromancy made him want to retch, but he shouldn't have been surprised, this close to the body that had obviously been used for such nefarious purposes. _It's a smell that lingers…_ a traitorous memory whispered to him. _It takes so long to clear it from your nose. Like oil, water alone will not wash it away._ He controlled both his stomach and expression, ruthlessly pushing away all feelings of weakness.

"But a few moments after the fiend must have done—this—to her," the man murmured. "Perhaps fifteen minutes?"

"Was the man tall? Short? Dark haired? Light haired?" Vilkas pressed him, but it was futile: he only shook his head, murmuring apologetically that he had not been able to get a good look at him. Vilkas shook his head; nothing useful, except that the killer had been a man. But judging from the choice of victim and the state of the body… Vilkas would have bet his life that the killer was a man even without that information. A chill ran through him; graveyards always felt colder than they should by rights, he thought to himself as he walked over to speak with the priestess. Sigrid had finished with the beggar, tagging along after him as she shook her head.

"She saw nothing. She heard a scream, but saw nothing—when she came into the cemetery, she found Susanna like this," she said, face grim.

"The man didn't see anything either," Vilkas said, and then tapped the priestess on her shoulder.

She startled, almost falling to the ground in her crouched position next to the body. She waved her hand when he apologized, and at the question, said, "No. But I did notice her coin purse was intact, so whoever did this wasn't after gold." Sigrid shot Vilkas a significant glance, and the priestess sniffed. "I'm going to keep preparing the body if you'll _excuse me."_

When they reported back to the guard, he muttered, "Just like always—no one saw anything useful. Bastard's escaped again."

"And that's it?" Sigrid asked. "You're going to give up, just like that?"

"Look, friends, if you can do better than the legion of guards. Better talk to Jorleif, we can't have anyone go around claiming to be on official business. Then we'll talk." And he remained there, standing guard as the priestess' gentle hands moved over the still, broken form of Susanna.

Vilkas looked at Sigrid, questioningly, and she nodded. "Aye," she said, voice quiet but determined, "We'll see what we can do."

He followed her up the street towards the looming form of the Palace of Kings in the distance, shaking his head. The woman was a contradiction wrapped up in a riddle—just when he thought he'd figured her out, she did something that seemed so strangely out of character for her. "What the hell was that about?" he asked, more curious than annoyed. "I didn't think you'd care so intently for some stranger you never met."

She spat on the ground, disgusted, though not, as might have happened a few weeks earlier, with him. "I've seen many things in my time on this earth," she said. "And the one constant is that a certain kind of man thinks that just because a particular woman is weaker than he is, because she is unprotected or without anyone to care what happens to her, that they can get away with doing whatever they want to her. I've seen it in Skyrim, I've seen it in Cyrodiil. I've seen it in Morrowind." The woman shrugged as they stepped quickly up the stairs to the courtyard of the palace, and smiled at him in the dark, as wolfish an expression as he had yet seen on her face. "Those jobs—the revenge—are the ones I've always taken for free."

"You surprise me," he said.

"That's what I was trying to tell you, back in Whiterun," was all she replied. "I may have a different code of honor than yours, but it is _mine_."

The guard allowed them to enter the Palace, though warned them that if they tried anything funny, they would pay for it. Vilkas had been inside of the Palace before, and so the huge stone throne room, with its long table and its soft blue carpets, did not awe him. Sigrid, on the other hand, glanced around at the chilly-looking room with appreciation, impressed by the carved ceilings and narrow windows. In the center of the room, the long table was still set with dishes and plates for the morrow's meal, though the only person remaining in the room was a little man with a huge drooping mustache.

"Jorlief!" Vilkas called.

The man looked up from the ledger book at which he'd been squinting in dismay, and his eyes widened, recognizing Vilkas' face, as well as his armor—they had worked for and against the Jarl of Windhelm over the years, as the fortunes of war had changed. As Ulfric's steward, Jorlief had been the one to hire him, and parcel out the coin. "Vilkas? What brings the Companions to Windhelm?"

"Business," Vilkas said, without elaboration. "This is Sigrid, the newest member of our band."

"A pleasure to meet you, milady," Jorlief said politely, then frowned at Vilkas. "But the hour, my friend, is rather untoward. I suggest you return when the Jarl is awake, if you have need to petition him for any reason."

"It's a bit more urgent than that," Sigrid interrupted, and Jorlief turned his mild brown gaze on her in surprise.

Vilkas shot her a quelling glance, and said, "What my shield-sister means to say is that when we entered the city, we came upon a rather…gruesome scene."

Jorlief groaned and hid his face in his hands, as though defeated by the weight of his office. "Do you mean to tell me that the Butcher has struck again? These are difficult times indeed, when men stalk their brethren like…beasts."

"It would seem so," Vilkas said. "The guard informed us if we were to help we must talk to you first."

"We're stretched thin as it is," Jorlief said, tugging his mustache nervously, "If you offer aid, I gladly accept. The guards will be told to assist you as necessary. I'm happy to lend a hand as much as I can, as well."

"Thank you, sir," Sigrid said, and before anyone else could react, she was running back out into the night.

In the cemetery, the body was already gone, though the guard remained at the crime scene, as though to dissuade any other gawkers from stepping through the trail of blood that led away into the night. He merely nodded, totally uncaring, as Vilkas told him they had received the steward's "Helgird's taken the body into the Hall of the Dead to prepare it," he told them. "She's a little crazy, but if she knows _anything_, it's dead bodies."

Inside the Hall of the Dead, the warm glowing candlelight felt strangely out of place with the scene they found within, which was the strong but wizened frame of Helgird, bent over the still, graying corpse of Susanna. The woman had been arranged more respectfully than she'd been left on the grave: legs straightened, arms folded across her chest, and her wide, staring blue eyes had been closed. Helgird was muttering to herself, "Large diagonal cut from left shoulder…" She looked up and fixed them with her watery eyes when she saw them enter. "Oh, it's the two _investigators_," she said, not a little sardonically. "Come to question the crone, hmmm? Looking for clues? Going to solve this dastardly crime when the guards have all failed?"

"Have you noticed anything unusual about her?" Vilkas asked, interrupting the most unpriestly priestess he had met in his entire life. Though he tried to see whether he could pick anything up from the body itself, it was a useless endeavor, still. In the bowels of the Hall, surrounded by death on all four sides, his keen sense of smell was not much use, especially not when the reek of blood magic drowned out any nuance that he could have detected.

"Well, she's dead," Helgird said bluntly, and broke into loud, raucous laughter that echoed throughout the silence of the halls, "But that's _not_ unusual, at least not for somebody in here. At least, someone who's not me that is." When she saw Sigrid looking at her in disgust, she shrugged. "Sorry, I was only joking!"

"So…the body?" Vilkas prompted her.

"Oh, yes. Right. Of course," the priestess said, gathering herself. Sigrid shot Vilkas a look of annoyance and he privately agreed with both her and the guard: this woman was insane. "Only unusual thing is the _shape_ of the cuts. They look like they were made with, well—the embalming tools the ancient Nords used. The curved blades that were only to embalm their dead. Wickedly sharp, much more accurate than a normal knife for this kind of work. But I don't know who in Windhelm would have anything like that…except me, of course," and she cackled again, one hand patting Susanna's corpse affectionately on the leg.

"Er, well… let us know if you find anything else," Sigrid said.

"I wouldn't hold out too much hope," Helgird shrugged, then frowned at them. "Now I've really got to get back to the body, it's going to take a lot of work to make _her_ presentable for burial."

"Well, she wasn't much help," Vilkas said.

"But she was," Sigrid replied. "We just have to think about what we know so far. The death was _not_ motivated by money."

"Aye," Vilkas agreed, as they caught the blood trail as it began in the cemetery, following it up the stairs. "The weapon was most likely an embalming tool, according to the priestess… but she was not being prepared for burial. Not if she was left like that. And he probably didn't care for her, either, or he would never have left her splayed like that for anyone to see. Perhaps he wasn't a stranger, but doubtful that he was a relation…" His mind was moving quickly now, cycling through all of the facts at hand. He found strangely, that talking things through with her seemed to help him make connections that he had not done before. This was a new exercise for him; in their line of work generally the culprit of a murder was clear, still standing there with the blood on his sword and a scowl on his face, and a muttered _yeah I done it, wot of it_? This was something different, unfathomable, but he found himself looking forward to the challenge, to bringing this monster to justice. "Some kind of necromancy was afoot. I don't know what it was, but I could smell it. So strong it choked me."

"Is that what that awful stench was? I didn't…recognize it. But something else _is_ bothering me," Sigrid told him as they walked up the stairs, carefully following the blood trail, "The cuts on her arms and legs. I got a closer look when we were talking to the priestess. He took her _tendons_, Vilkas. Not her flesh. Her _tendons_."

His stomach roiled. "You're sure?"

"Yes," she said. "My father and I field dressed enough animals over the years that I know what to look for. The cuts should have been deep enough to reach them, down to the bone as they were, but they weren't there. Her tendons were _gone_."

"What would he want with tendons…?"

They found themselves stopped short before a door, the blood trail dragging beneath it. Sigrid inhaled sharply and tested the knob. It was locked. "Damn it!" she swore, and threw herself against the door with her entire weight, slamming against the hard wood. The door held strong against her, and she tried again, a low growl in her throat.

"Hold on," Vilkas said. "We can either ask Jorlief for the key, or, if we don't want to wait…" He produced, from a pocket, a little roll of lock picks.

"I could kiss you right now," Sigrid said fervently, making him snort.

"I don't think this is quite the appropriate time for that," Vilkas said, as he crouched near the door. He was not as talented at lock picking as a thief, but it had been a useful skill to possess often enough throughout the years of mercenary work that he kept a number of picks on his person at all time. There was a trick to it, tilting the pick until the pins aligned just correctly. After a few tries, the lock popped open, and with a bit of trepidation, he turned the knob. It fell open with a creak, and Vilkas went in first, one hand over his shoulder to draw his sword if necessary.

Though there was no one within the abandoned house, there certainly _had_ been someone before. The wide, broad room was a mess, strewn with blood and trash. As Sigrid closed the door behind her, he could feel the air about him, close and suffocating. The scent of blood magic that he'd caught in the cemetery was even stronger here, though at first it was so overwhelming that it was all he could do to blink back the water that threatened to stream from his stinging eyes. The bloody trail led to a chest shoved against the wall, and Sigrid went to it, opening the lid gingerly, almost as if she expected something to leap out at her. Nothing happened. Within the chest, she drew a number of pamphlets that read _BEWARE THE BUTCHER!_ They crouched together next to the chest as she next drew out a journal, and he looked over her shoulder as she read aloud with increasing disgust and incredulity.

"'Plans are coming together swimmingly. I've found good sources of bone, flesh, and blood, but this far a good sampling of sinew and marrow have escaped me…'" she shuddered, and fell silent: together they looked at the Butcher's messy scrawl, detailing a previous attempt on the victim's life. "You were right, Vilkas," she said as she read on. "He is a mage. Ugh. This is _disgusting_…"

"A crazy one," Vilkas said gruffly, to cover the sudden wave of nausea that threatened to overtake him. The hot, close air weighed down on him as he breathed in the sickly, rotting smell of the blood and magic.

"And I was right about the tendons," she said, half to herself. The odor did not seem to bother her as much as it did him and he could not imagine why. The stench of it blocked out everything else, making it almost impossible for him to think. Somehow he managed to follow her through the room as they noted the mess; in the corner, two wardrobes stood at angles, one against each wall. In middle, a shorter shelf contained more papers, and as Sigrid leafed through them, revealed a strange necklace. Drawing it out, they examined the amulet curiously. An oval-shaped pendant of carved silver, the middle cameo was a carved skull of some green stone, its mouth open in a toothy, confrontational grin. It was heavier than it looked at first sight.

"Don't put it on," he warned her.

"Oh Vilkas," she sighed, "I'm not _stupid_. I know by now not to put on strange necromancer's amulets without knowing what the results might be."

"Right," he said, distracted. The stench was worse in this corner. He was sweating now, the beads rolling off of him in waves. _What the hell is wrong with you…?_ Almost as if in a dream, he examined the wardrobe against the bit of wall that jutted out of the rest. It was nailed to the wall itself, and did not move. Opening the door, he found it empty, but the stench intensified as the door swung away. One fist rapping against the back of the wardrobe proved it hollow, and as he felt the edges, found the hidden latch that would open the secret passage. The door fell away, revealing in one awful glance, a true house of horrors.

A stone altar stood at the corner, and upon it someone had strewn bones, and bloodstains, and body parts. More bones lay on the floor, bloody torsos with the flesh still clinging to them, bones strewn across it like discarded toys. Small offerings on plates, cheeses and small rocks and other, darker talismans, and bottles of mead were arranged around the altar, with candles lit to give the entire thing an eerie effect, guttering flames warding off the clutching dark. Bloodied, stained embalming tools, on shelves and on the altar, linen wrapped packages with dark stains seeping through them. The smell now was suffocating, the death and decay and old magic, but he followed Sigrid into the room, feet propelling him against his own volition. She had found another journal on the altar and picked it up, fearlessly, reading aloud: "Seven tendons and assorted ligaments, one hundred seventy-three fragments of bone for assemblage, approximately four bucketfuls of blood…this sick _bastard_—"

Her voice droned on, and then in an instant, everything became too much, the sweat pouring down his back, the stench of the magic, the hot close air of the tiny room, the smell of blood, the dark and the guttering candles. The discarded woman's parts. Women's' parts. Something had been tickling at the back of his mind since he had broken into the house, and suddenly the memories broke, rushing over him at once like a river escaping a dam. He could smell them; taste them, things that had not troubled him except in dreams for years and years, and in a sudden painful clarity that his nightmares never brought. _A woman's pale eyes, the light of them fading, the lids closing, and snapping opening again, bloodshot and dead. Her drooling mouth yawning in a groan, teeth snapping at him. Without seeing, she looked at him and he knew that she would never again ruffle his hair and sing him to sleep. His mother's dead limbs, moving. His father's blood. The chanting of the mages in the cavern, the stinking air and the dark, the flickering light of the candles as he stood in the center of the circle, blood painted and drying on his face. His brother's screams. The taste of blood on his lips, forced down his throat. Choking and gagging on it. The fear, the overwhelming fear, the stench of his brother and himself, covered in filth. The dark and the chains. The pain of the whip when he would not move for them, when he refused to follow orders. The gnawing hunger of his empty stomach, refusing all food because he could not know what it was. Because it was likely human flesh. The oily feeling of the magic coating his skin, knowing he would never be clean. Knowing he would die. That they would play with his limbs the way they had toyed with his mother, jerking her around like a marionette. He would die but he would take them with him. No. No. No!_

"Vilkas!" someone was saying, "Vilkas!" And he felt a hard slap in his face. He opened his eyes and found that somehow, he was sitting on the ground outside of the abandoned home, the cool, fresh night air ghosting across his face. Sigrid was crouched on the ground in front of him, looking terrified. "Vilkas?"

"Yes," he said. His voice sounded strange to his own ears.

"What the hell happened? Are you all right?"

"I…" he said. "That room… the altar and the candles, and the closeness of it… The smell… I suddenly remembered things, things that were grey in my mind for years. It was as though I was there again, in that cave."

"Before Jergen rescued you," Sigrid said, evidently catching on. "I've heard of such things happening to soldiers after long battles—noises and smells, even, can bring you back as though you're experiencing all of it again. I've never seen it but… Ysmir, that was terrifying."

He laughed, though there was no humor in it. "It was something, all right." And he pulled himself to his feet, ignoring the shakiness of his legs, looking resolutely at the door again. "Come on. Let's go back in."

"Don't be an idiot," Sigrid said, staring at him with wide, gray eyes. "You're in no condition to go into that altar room again, and besides, we've discovered probably everything there is to discover from that room—namely, that our murderer is a psychopath. It's late. Come on, we're going to get a room at the Candlehearth, and you're going to sleep this off, and we'll investigate more in the morning."

"But—" he started.

"No buts," Sigrid ordered him. And then she took his arm and herded him off towards the inn.

* * *

><p>As she walked Vilkas towards the Candlehearth, she exhaled, feeling rather poleaxed. When he fell to his knees in that awful room, she had had no idea what was happening. The consummate warrior, she had never seen him frightened of anything. And even then, it wasn't <em>fear<em>—she had not known what it was. His eyes had been so bleak, so distant, that for a second she had thought he must have walked into some necromage's magical trap, something that had caught hold of his mind. It had taken all of her strength to haul him, shallow breathing, dead weight and all, out into the street, where he remained unresponsive for several long moments that had felt like an eternity. _I should have known_, she thought. He had told her of his past, that day in Korvanjund, but she had thought that memories once lost were lost forever. The mind seemed to be a stranger thing than she had thought, at first. Though he had regained awareness and movement, he was still withdrawn and distant when they came to the inn, the warm, welcoming fire a relief after the horrors of that forsaken abode, and let her do the negotiating, not even complaining when she only paid for one room.

They did not speak as they undressed, nor as she slid into the bed first, and held the covers for him. He followed, silent, and they lay there in the dark, feet warming beneath the quilt. She did not know what to say, or if in fact there was anything appropriate to say in such a situation. Suddenly his arms were around her, a crushing grip, legs tangling between hers, as though by holding on to something warm and alive the memories shocked from the depths of his mind would be banished again. She slid an arm beneath his, one hand on the small of his back, and listened to his shallow, quick breath in the dark, felt his skin slowly warm next to hers. She was unused to tenderness, in all aspects of her life, and this felt strange and awkward, like a familiar piece of clothing that no longer fit quite the right way. But he was—whatever he was to her—and somehow she knew that he needed this. Needed her, or someone like her. And she would not deny him. Her earlier admonition, _watch yourself_, echoed through her mind, but what else could she do now? Whatever she was, she was not _cruel. _Eventually, his breathing slowed again, and she knew he was asleep.

The rest of the night was just as strange. Half dreaming, she woke when he did, with a start, the cold sweat of a nightmare chilling his back. He was reaching for her with the desperate gasp of a drowning man, for something solid, and she let him take her, let him kiss her fiercely without any of the usual battle for power, strange and almost dreamlike, surreal, the transition from sleep to sex and back to sleep, this time silent, this time dreamless. She drifted back into the darkness with his arms wrapped tightly around her and a warning in her stomach.

In the morning, they did not speak of it again.


	18. Hunting

__**AN: THANK YOU** guys for all of the wonderful things you've said! I really, really appreciate every comment, and I love reading your thoughts. :) Sorry this update has taken so long, I've had some pretty awful writer's block this week. And Krystal, nope, Vilkas won't be joining the Blades. I don't want to spoil anything but I will say that Sigrid and Delphine do not generally see eye-to-eye about most things, haha.

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><p><em>A deed more evil I have done<br>Than, brother mine, thou e'er canst mend._

—The Poetic Edda, from _Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar_, translated by Henry Adams Bellows

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><p>When she woke she was still exhausted, could feel the dark circles soft under her eyes. By the time they had fallen asleep it must have been almost dawn, and now the sun's new light just barely crept through the narrow window on the far wall. He was already awake, though he had not risen from the bed. They lay together still, his hand on her side, until he realized her eyes had opened too. "Morning," he said, gruffly.<p>

"Morning," she replied.

They took breakfast in their room, two plates of hot food sent up from the kitchen by a shy serving girl who took one look at Vilkas and fled, blushing. Though she would have normally teased him about his lady-killing abilities, Sigrid let the comment go for now. If the events of the previous night still felt fresh and raw to her, then she could not imagine what he was feeling or thinking. She could not use her werewolf's nose to tease out emotions like he did, and so she could only go by her human senses: she watched him, eating his breakfast with as hearty an appetite as ever, with the narrow-minded intensity with which he attacked every task. Seemingly untroubled by the sudden rush of memories that had rendered him nearly catatonic but a day before. In a way, she understood. She remembered the single-mindedness with which she had put one foot in front of the other after scattering her father's ashes. It had been hard to lose him, her only family in the world, and she had lived through it without falling apart, but even so—even a messy death by bandit could not compare to the horrors that she could only imagine Vilkas had experienced. And here was the man himself, sitting in his breeches on the narrow bed, tearing into a loaf of bread and bits of melting, sweet goat cheese with gusto. She couldn't decide whether she wanted to kiss him, or grab him by the shoulders and shake hard.

In the end, she settled for polishing off her own plate and dressing, quickly, still wearing his borrowed tunic and breeches. When she looked up, she saw him watching her with a frown, as though seeing her for the first time, or as though something had grown, suddenly, from her forehead.

"Ready to continue investigating?" she asked, but what she really meant was _are you all right? _In the light of day, expressing concern seemed unfathomable, particularly when he appeared so determined to go on without a flicker in his expression.

"Yes," he said, eyes darkening. "Let's find that sick bastard."

* * *

><p>Vilkas wondered if she could sense how off balance he still felt. When he had spoken to her in Korvanjund of his past and told her that he did not remember his life before the Companions, he had not been exaggerating. Everything, until the day that Jergen dragged them from the reeking cave and slew the mages, had been walled behind a thick fog, as though in order to prevent his young mind from sliding into total madness, he had subconsciously decided to forget everything except Jergen's bearded, ruddy face swimming into focus. Before that night, he had not been able to remember his mother's features, the horrors to which they had been subjected, or his father's voice, the songs they had sung to him at night. Occasionally a nightmare would trouble his dreams, but it was always a vague sense of horror rather than details, forgotten in the morning. In that stinking altar room, the heat and the stench and the feel of the blood magic ripped the protective veil from his mind, throwing him headlong into memories he hadn't experienced for decades, with all of the intensity that they had held in the moment. <em>Overwhelming<em> was an understatement for such an experience, all of the terror he had felt as a helpless child rushing back to him at once, with all of the immediacy of experiencing those things for the first time. He could still remember it now, still taste it, and knew that no matter how he might wish to, forgetting would never again be an option.

But whatever he remembered now was immaterial. It did not matter. It could not matter. He could not afford to falter. He was no longer a frightened child, could not give in to weakness again like he had the night before… And he frowned, knowing that if she had not been there, if she had not been so strangely understanding of what he needed from her, that he would not have slept all. It was almost as though he knew two different people: prickly, suspicious Sigrid, given to running off at the drop of a hat and lashing out with her fists and tongue at even smaller provocation, and this stranger who avenged wronged women and knew when to say nothing, whose rough hands were surprisingly gentle in the night. _Better not to think about it, Vilkas._ _The minute you don't understand where you stand is the minute you falter._

"Ready to continue investigating?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied, more firmly than he felt. "Let's find that sick bastard."

"Let's start with the amulet today," she said, "Maybe once we know more of its provenance that will give us a better idea of where to begin looking."

He seemed to be moving automatically; though his feet took him down the stairs with his sword at his back, Sigrid following behind him, his mind was everywhere else. The cold winter morning greeted him with open arms, the icy air bracing. He felt sharper already, took a deep breath, and looked sideways at her. "Right. We should figure out where to get that amulet examined."

"Try the market?" she suggested, "Maybe one of the merchants will know."

"Aye," he said, agreeing. "And perhaps if the murderer is one of them, we'll see…some kind of reaction to the reappearance of his jewel."

As they walked, they overheard the gossip of the local residents. Bern Golden-Fingers' body had been found but the guards had no idea who had been behind the burnt shipment and bodies in the river. News of Susanna's murder, however, drowned out everything else, as the town's women were aflutter in fear that they could become the next victims. Vilkas overheard all of it, making mental notes regarding those who seemed particularly callous about Susanna's death: Rolff Stone-fist, the brother of Ulfric's second in command especially. He insisted on making a number of cracks about whores getting what they asked for and even worse remarks like _don't know why he bothered with the tendons, everyone knows what _her _best feature was_. Vilkas put out a hand when he saw Sigrid tense, about to lunge for him. "Easy, shield-sister," he murmured. "Deserving of it as he is, Ulfric and Galmar both are in residence…"

"I could kill _him_ and we could see who was asking for what," she growled, but relented. He could feel her still, muscles tightly wound beneath his hand, still angled towards her intended prey like a drawn bowstring. But she allowed him to steer her towards the open air marketplace without futher incident. "Are you _sure_ it's not him? Because I would dearly like to make him sorry for it."

"He doesn't seem…the subtle sort," Vilkas said.

"You're probably right," Sigrid replied, a scowl still etched on her forehead.

It was easier to forget what had happened the previous night, here in the bustle and noise of Windhelm's Stone Quarter, with the smell of fresh food and the fire of the blacksmith's forge and the drifting scent of the stables, in the bright, clear light of day. Vilkas found himself concentrating instead on the mystery ahead of them, finding out what the amulet meant. He paused in front of a stall run by a tall Altmer woman, who looked at them with a bland expression, taking their measure and unimpressed by what she saw. "Welcome to Niranye's general goods…" she murmured, with a slightly ironic wave of her hand at the small stand.

"Where d'you go around here to get something… appraised?" Vilkas asked.

"What kind of 'something'?" she replied warily.

"Very old jewelry."

"Old, eh? I'm no good for that, though I do know my gold. Sadri's Used Wares," she mused, "Or perhaps, failing that, Calixto's House of Curiosities."

"House of Curiosities?" Sigrid asked.

"Oh, Calixto's just a crazy old man," Niranye said, with a dismissive laugh, "But he does know his old dusty things. It's a museum, of sorts, though whether it's a museum of treasures or trash is anyone's best guess. He holds the history of Tamriel in his hands, to hear him tell it. But he may be able to help you."

"Thank you," Sigrid said.

Together, they walked through the streets of Windhelm towards the House of Curiosities. Sigrid examined the city with the wide eyes of one who had never seen it before, frowning when she saw the Gray Quarter and muttering to herself. "You've really never been here before?" he asked.

"No," she said. "When I was a girl, we lived in a small cottage outside of Winterhold. All of our hunting was done in the forests there, or the mountains, or on the beaches of the Sea of Ghosts. And when my father died… well. I was but fourteen winters old, and I took the first road to Morrowind—and I haven't returned to Skyrim since. It just… didn't seem right, somehow."

"And now?"

"I didn't really have a choice about that," she said, with a smile that bordered on a smirk. "At first, anyway. I suppose not now, either."

Windhelm itself was a grim city; even with the sun out and trembling above the stone spires, it had a chill that went down to the bone. Or the stone, as it were. Built from slabs of rock cooled by the icy wind, the city was a foreboding place punctuated by brightly colored flags and the flames of torches and braziers. He had not spent much time within these walls, passing through only for Companions work and then leaving again. It held none of the charm of Whiterun, with its warm buildings and wide plains upon which a wolf could run free for hours, and its smells were all of rock and flame and snow. And he had never before visited the House of Curiosities, whatever that might be.

It turned out to be a small, private home, just before the entrance to the Gray Quarter. A crooked sign advertised tours for a septim, and listed the hours in a hand that seemed familiar, but unplaceable. The two Companions glanced at each other, and with a slightly mocking flourish, Vilkas opened the door for her, indicating that she should proceed while he held it. She mouthed _you're too kind_ in his direction, rolled her eyes, and stalked through the door with her head held high.

Inside, they found a small room with a few shelves set up around it, holding a variety of artifacts, or what he assumed were artifacts: they all looked extremely old, though they were spotlessly clean and well-polished. A man sat in a chair, his legs stretched out before him as he dozed. Vilkas caught an unpleasant scent in the air: faint, but marked, and his stomach twisted. It was the unmistakeable smell of blood magic, fainter and less concentrated than in the awful basement of Hjerim, but still present. A bright, shining thread that led right to this man, with his drawn face and hang-dog eyes, his pinched mouth that now spread in a friendly smile as they entered. As he smiled, Vilkas remembered where he had seen this man before.

In the cemetery, standing next to Susanna's body, a rueful grin on his face as he murmured that he had only seen the murderer running away.

He must not have caught the scent of it on him, for the body had drowned out everything else in his senses.

Vilkas could feel a growl rising, low in his throat, and he choked it back, though it choked _him_ to do so.

"What can I do for you, friend?" he asked pleasantly, his gaze drifting to Sigrid and fixing upon her with an interest so casual that it seemed force. She did not seem to notice, or if she did, she kept a better poker face than even his brother. "Are you here for a tour of my little museum?"

"No," Vilkas said, "Business only. We were told you're the man to see for identifying old artifacts."

"Do you know anything about this amulet?" Sigrid added, drawing the heavy chain from her satchel and extending it towards him, the pendant dangling in the air.

"Let me see…" Corrium said, taking the necklace from her, the chain pooling in his hands as he cradled it gently between them. "Ahhh… yes…" he murmured. "This is the wheel stone." His fingers ghosted lightly over the green malachite skull, as though fascinated by this small piece of the past. "This is an heirloom symbol of the power of Windhelm, traditionally carried by the court mage." He looked up at them again, his eyes narrowing with acquisitive greed, though Vilkas was privately unsure whether it was directed at Sigrid, or at the necklace. "I'd, uh, be interested in acquiring it—if you're willing to part with it, that is. For a piece like that, I could pay… five hundred gold."

Sigrid glanced sideways at Vilkas, who nodded. He was almost positive that he was correct, that this man was the Butcher—but they had no proof. Perhaps, if he was reunited with his little…toy…he would lead them to—something.

"Wonderful!" Corrium exclaimed. "This will be a splendid addition to my private collection. But a moment. Let me count out the gold for you." It took him what seemed like ages, muttering and losing his count. As he sorted out the money, he glanced at them continuously through his lowered lids, apologetically. "I'm sorry," he said, "My eyes aren't what they used to be, these days." A little chuckle as Vilkas strained to avoid killing the man right there. He smiled, all friendly conspiracy, at Sigrid as he gave her the money, wrapped neatly in a burlap bag. "Glad to see we could help each other, hmm?" His eyes lingered, just a moment too long, as she nodded and accepted the money.

Vilkas made a point of taking her arm, ignoring her startled blink of surprise, and practically dragged her from the shop. Once outside, she pulled him aside beneath a stone awning and demanded in a whisper, "What was that about?"

"You didn't smell it?" he asked, the fury and frustration in him almost boiling over.

"There was something off, but I didn't recognize it—"

"It's him," Vilkas whispered fiercely, "He's our killer. The minute I stepped into that _museum_ I could smell the stench on him. The magic, the blood, all of it."

Sigrid nodded, did not question him.

"Didn't you see the way he was looking at you?"

"At _me_?" Sigrid said. "What the hell would he be looking at _me_ for?" The unpleasant suspicion descended on her shoulders like a wet cloak. "That journal—he still needed marrow…"

"You see?" Vilkas said.

And in that moment, he could tell that she knew. She looked up at him, unaware of the sudden, flashing brilliance of her smile, the smile of a hunter about to run down her prey. "I know how we're going to catch this bastard."

* * *

><p>Unsurprisingly, Vilkas did not agree with her plan. He followed her back to the Candlehearth Inn, protesting in a low, urgent voice the entire way. "This is madness," he insisted, "You have no idea whether this will work. He could kill <em>you<em>. Sigrid, this is insane. We're better off just killing him now, putting him down like the rabid animal he is." As she went up the stairs, he grabbed her arm, gripping it above the elbow, as though if that alone could stop her.

"And what of the steward?" she challenged him, "Will he accept our word that a citizen of Windhelm, who has lived here for years and years, is the murderer? The word of two sell-swords passing through?"

"We could find some sort of proof in the museum," Vilkas argued, as she broke free and continued up the stairs, confident stride echoing in the empty hall. "There must be _something_ linking him to the journals and that room. Handwriting samples, another journal…"

"This is the easiest way," Sigrid replied. "We'll catch him in the act. You yourself saw how he looked at me—evidently my bones are big enough to satisfy his need for marrow." She began to unbuckle her armor, stowing it in the locked chest provided by the inn. Her sword followed, along with her satchel. All that remained was the dagger hidden in her boot. "And he'll be more likely to attempt to attack me if I'm not so—well protected."

"Woman," he growled, "You are the most damned infuriatingly stubborn baggage I've ever met."

"Oh, Vilkas," she said mockingly, "You always know just what to say to a lady." She stood there in his borrowed shirt and trousers, hands on her hips. "I've made up my mind and this is what we're doing. Come on. We haven't much time to waste. I don't want him to change his mind and go after more accessible prey—" He cut her off, crossing the room in two strides, taking her face in his hands and kissing her, a hot, tangled mess of a kiss, over before she even had time to react. The imprint of heat from his lips remained. Startled, she pulled back as he did, shoving him in the chest and demanding, "What the hell was that for?"

"Don't do anything stupid," he said, scowling at her.

"The last time you said that," Sigrid said, laughing as she pushed her way past him towards the door, "A bandit sliced my face open."

"You see my concerns," he said dryly, as he stalked after her.

She was about to make a remark along the lines of _oh, don't tell me you _care, but then she realized that, however bizarre it might seem, he _did_. And she wasn't sure whether that made her feel better or worse about the entire situation. To hide her discomfort, she coughed into her fist and began to give him instructions as she went down the stairs. "We'll have to pretend like we're going about a normal day, seeing the sights. Walk past his shop, get him on the scent, stay _just_ out of reach, not give him an opportunity until later on… And _then_ we'll let him have a chance."

"And then?"

"And then you'll be following at a distance, and I'll have my dagger still. And then we'll kill him," Sigrid said. "Preferably with witnesses, but I don't think he's the sort of murderer to chance getting caught. Not now, not before he's accomplished…whatever he's trying to accomplish."

The plan began easily enough; Sigrid, evidently unarmed and unarmored, feeling quite naked as she stepped into the street. But she could not falter now. She could feel Vilkas at her side, a tense column of muscle. He was not happy about the plan, but it was the only thing she could think of to draw Calixto out into the open. If he had a hankering for marrow and thought her a suitable fit, better she, who could defend herself, than some poor barmaid who hadn't a chance against a sharp knife. She knew that they had him when, after taking her time to examine the items in the window of the House of Curiosities, a shadow passed behind the glass and, as they walked by the building, she could see from the corner of her peripheral vision the door open and close.

It was strange, this reverse hunt. Sigrid drew on all of her old hunting instincts and applied them the other way. She thought of the way that the elk would flee, trying to throw them off by dodging and darting through the woods, the thrill she had when the animal would tire, stopping just long enough for her to catch a glimpse of it and continue tracking it, or the sight of footprints in the snow, leading her to her vanished prey. She employed the same tactics now, as she saw the Imperial following them at a distance, trying to pretend as though he was not really following, not really looking. Slowing down when he got too far away, chatting with Oengul War-Anvil about the Skyforge or examining some of the jewelry laid out at Niranye's stall. She could see the man, following them surreptitiously, exchanging pleasantries with the citizenry as he gravitated towards her path.

"It's working," she whispered to Vilkas, as they walked down the street from the Gray Quarter, past the cemetery where all of this had begun. "He's on the scent now. Look at him, straining towards it."

"He's frustrated," Vilkas replied. "I can smell it on him. Shield-sister, are you _sure_ you know what you're doing? This man is a monster."

The irony of it, that the two of them, dragon and wolf, monsters of legend, were hunting a man who hunted them in turn, did not escape her. She laughed, low in her throat. This was what she lived for, no matter what lies she told herself in the night about wanting to buy property, a quiet home to retire to, to lay her old bones in a feather bed at night. To say that she lived for anything but the hunt, for anything but battle, for anything but the thrill of not knowing when she would teeter off the edge of that treacherous dance was a lie. "I know what I'm doing," she told him, "I'm doing the only thing we _can_ do."

She toyed with Corrium a little longer, now breaking away from Vilkas to explore the area of the block on her own, but always staying just a little too close to the other Windhelm citizens, just now wandering back to the man, armored and wearing his sword strapped across his back. She could almost sense the mounting frustration boiling over in the thin man, her shadow, her would-be-hunter. _Just you try and bring me down, little man,_ she thought fiercely.

Vilkas did an admirable job of hiding his displeasure with the entire scheme, playing along with her charade like a professional. To all appearances they must have looked like a man and his lady, enjoying the sights and sounds of Windhelm, occasionally speaking with their heads close together, elbows bumping. Perhaps in another situation she might have enjoyed it, though she knew that easy way about their interactions today was all an act. It was easy, though, to pretend.

At times she lost sight of Corrium, but he was always there, waiting, a drab little daub of black in the near distance. The sun was setting now, the citizens beginning to head back to their homes for supper with their families, to the Candlehearth Inn or the New Gnosis Cornerclub for drinks. As the shadows lengthened around them, Sigrid pulled Vilkas towards her and whispered. "It's time. Pretend as though you're going to the Inn. I'll meet you in the cemetery."

"Sigrid—" he started.

"Don't argue with me, Vilkas. It's the only way." And, raising her voice, she said loudly enough for Corrium to hear: "Meet you in the Inn in a moment, darling, I'm just going to pay my respects…"

"'Darling'?" he said in a low voice.

"Just trying to make it convincing," she murmured. "Don't forget. Don't come too soon. He has to think I'm alone." And she turned on her heel, resisting the urge to stride quickly towards the cemetery. She had to move slowly enough so that Corrium would have the chance to follow her, but it proved difficult. As did the sudden, bizarre desire to look back over her shoulder, to watch Vilkas go. The anticipation of confronting the monster was almost unbearable, but she must rein it in. As she went down the stairs into the cemetery, snow began to fall, slowly at first, picking up as the time went on. The flickering torches against the walls guttered with the intrusion, throwing the graves into eerie shadows. She could hear her own footsteps on the stone, her breath in her ears, as she approached the grave upon which Susanna's body had been discarded like a broken toy. She was alone and she was cold, vulnerable without her armor or sword, but she was not afraid. Let him come.

There: the sound of footsteps, barely audible, soft muffled against the stones. If she hadn't had the enhanced hearing that came with the beast-blood, she might have missed it, even with all of her years hunting animals in the woods. He was coming for her. For the marrow in her bones, the blood in her veins. Her breath slowed, quieted. It was a delicate moment now. Too close and he might get in a lucky stab; too far, and all she would have would be a blade in the snow, unblemished. A strange experience, to be the hunted. To be aware of the steps inching closer, the breath squeaking out into the cold.

Closer. Just a little closer.

She heard his gasping breath as he raised the dagger, and then everything happened at once. She whirled as he was stabbing down, and instead of catching her through the back like he had wanted, he sliced her shoulder open, to the bone. The searing pain of it shocked her into action, and bulling forward, she threw her entire weight into the movement, tackling him to the ground. Though Corrium was a slight man, he fought with a rage born of insanity, some desperate motivation far beyond her ken. And there was the matter of the knife, punching dangerously close to her vulnerable guts. She had no time to reach for her own blade, which now seemed too far away.

He was screaming now, the words garbled with fury and spittle and the struggle, calling her a worthless whore, yelling that she did not deserve the life in her body, the marrow in her bones. She twisted again to avoid a stab of his blade, already stained with her blood, and managed to wrench it from his fingers by twisting his wrist sharply and headbutting him. Startled, he let go of the blade. As he did, someone grabbed Corrium by the back of the neck and hauled him away from her. "I had that under control!" she managed to gasp, but Vilkas wasn't listening to her. She couldn't blame him. After the experiences of the last few days she had a feeling that two decades of pent-up rage and tragedy were behind the fists currently pummeling the murderer's face into an unrecognizable pulp, his face twisted in a dark fury that rendered him equally unrecognizable. She let him have the moment. Violence never brought full closure, this she knew, but sometimes giving in to that anger helped, at least for the time being.

Eventually, though, Corrium was obviously dead and not getting up again. From beneath the flying fists she could see only a mess of pulped flesh and bone, an unrecognizable mess that could perhaps once been human, but did not look it any longer.

Her shoulder throbbed.

"Vilkas," she said.

He looked up, startled and wide-eyed, as though he had lost track of time. Splattered in Corrium's blood and bone fragments, he seemed a feral creature from a story told to frighten children.

"I had that under control, you know," she said mildly, pressing her hand against the shoulder wound and wincing.

She could see him forcing himself back under control, and was mildly impressed that he had remained human thus far. The wolf must have been longing for release; she could see the gold flashing in his eyes as he rocked back on his haunches, pulling away from the dead man. "Yes," he said hoarsely, "You obviously had that under control. You're bleeding."

"I've had worse," she said, and it was the truth. But she still felt light-headed and giddy from the blood loss, from the aftermath of the chase and the battle, and she tried to stand up from the snow where she'd sprawled. A pool of her own blood on the ice, rapidly browning in the air. "We've got to stop meeting like this, darling, or it's going to kill me one of these days."

"This is no time for jokes—" he started to say, but by now the commotion had drawn the guards, too late, running down the snowy stairs and skidding on the grass, swords drawn.

"What happened here?" the woman demanded. Her male counterpart was not so strong-stomached; he blanched visibly at the sight of the mess where Calixto Corrium's face had once been, and retched. The woman shot him a quelling look, but took over the questioning.

"That's the Butcher," Sigrid managed. "Or it was the Butcher."

"That's Calixto Corrium!" the male guard exclaimed, looking rather green around the gills. "Impossible!"

"My comrade and Susanna the barmaid would beg to differ," Vilkas said, standing, wiping one hand across his face in an attempt to clear the blood from it, but only succeeding in smearing it further.

"Look," Sigrid said, "One of you stay here with the body, and the other one come with us to search his house. We were officially assisting Jorlief the steward in the investigation. I'm sure everything will make sense of itself in time."

"Aye," the woman said gruffly. "Kjeld, you stay here. I'm going to see what all of this is about."

* * *

><p>Vilkas followed the guard, feeling as though he were walking underwater. He remembered with painful clarity that strange pang of—<em>something<em>—that had ripped through him when he saw the blade come down upon Sigrid. Fear that he hadn't been quick enough? (Fear of _what_, exactly?) Fury that this necromancer, this _monster_, would injure someone else? Emotions he still hadn't fully processed after regaining his memories? But he had not the time to consider them now. Would, perhaps, never have the time. The woman walked behind the guard, steady as ever, though her face was white and drawn and she bled steadily on his shirt. What had been his shirt. He imagined that even Tilma's careful ministrations would not be able to recover it. And after all of that, the shame that once again he'd given in to his basest urges. To pound that monster's face into nothingness, to erase his existence from the planet. It had felt like what he needed at the time, but now, after the time to think upon it, part of him was troubled. This was exactly why Kodlak had wished them to cease the transformations. It was too easy, far too easy, to give in to the beast, even as a man.

The guard used a key recovered from Calixto Corrium's body to open the door of the House of Curiosities. At first it seemed as though the madman had carefully kept his two lives separate, confining his monstrosities to the basement of Hjerim, which the guard informed Sigrid and Vilkas was the former residence of Frigga Shatter-Shield, his first victim. But Vilkas broke open a locked chest in the little loft, and they discovered the proof that they needed: a journal detailing the ghoulish motivations behind the killings. The parts of the women, along with the amulet's power and the blood magic upon which he drew his power, Calixto had intended to make a new woman to house his sister's form. _They would surely thank me for the great gift I give them_, he'd written, in his spidery writing, and after reading it, Vilkas no longer felt guilty about unleashing his rage upon the man.

"You must come before the Jarl and explain what has happened," the guard said.

"In our time," Vilkas said sharply, "Can you not see the woman needs a healer?"

Sigrid, who had been clasping a rapidly bloodied rag to her shoulder, smiled thinly. "I'm fine."

"Take a damn healing potion at least, if you insist on walking about," Vilkas snapped.

"Here," said the guard, fumbling around in her pockets, "It's only minor, but it should tide you over until you can see a healer."

He watched Sigrid drink it down in one gulp, making a face at the sickly-sweet taste. She glanced sideways at him, her eyes as exhausted as he felt. "Let's get this over with," she muttered, moving her shoulder experimentally. The worst of it did seem to have healed, the flesh newly closed and pink almost immediately. "And then we'll go home."

It turned out that not only was Jarl Ulfric brought down from his bed, but that the entire court had turned out to watch curiously as the bloodied warriors followed the guard into the long throne room. Vilkas felt a strange fury, looking at the line of pale faces in their armor or bedclothes, depending on what area of the castle they'd come from. What had they been doing these long weeks when Corrium stalked the streets of their city? If it had taken two outsiders the work of a few nights to bring the man to justice, had Ulfric been too busy planning his civil war to see to the welfare of his citizens?

The man himself looked regal on the throne, whether he had been woken from his sleep or not. Vilkas had to give him that much, at least: he certainly looked the part. His second, Galmar, stood at his side, as though daring Vilkas and Sigrid to rush his lord. Not that either of them were in the shape to do so. He could see the woman walking slowly, as though only by inching along could she keep from limping, from showing weakness.

"Jorlief tells me that you have brought the Butcher to justice," Ulfric proclaimed, looking at them without much interest. The woman, however, was watching Ulfric, as though she expected something else to happen. When it didn't, she looked unaccountably relieved, but about to say something else. Vilkas could only imagine that it was going to be something about the injustice of it, the woman's unnecessary death, and so he stepped forward to explain briefly, sharply, how they had drawn Corrium from his lair.

Ulfric sent them on their way with a wave of his hand and a bag of gold for their trouble, but strangely, though the citizens rejoiced, the Jarl himself seemed preoccupied. He was glad to leave, in the end. Whatever his feelings about the Stormcloaks, this lukewarm response to the capture of a murderer did nothing to endear their leader to him.

On the carriage ride back to Whiterun, Sigrid fell asleep, her head drooping first onto his shoulder and then, in a long, slow collapse of her entire body and a shift of her center of gravity, into his lap. He let her sleep there, though his own rest was far from coming. Without consciously realizing it, his hand found its way to her head, fingers curled around the back of her skull and into the newly-shaggy hair. _If I wished, I could crush her skull right now, between my hands_. Not that he would, but that she would willingly place herself into a position where such a thing could happen astounded him still. It was a fragile thing, trust. And he knew, instinctively, that it came harder for her than most. His thumb ghosted against the soft piece of skin behind her ear, unmarked by scars or ink. Unlike her. And he settled in for the rest of the journey.

* * *

><p>She woke before Riverwood, luckily, and scrambled out of his lap. He smirked at her, briefly, and she scowled. "Look, I have a favor to ask."<p>

"Yes?" he asked mildly, though one eyebrow raised.

"We need to make a quick stop in Riverwood. We can even leave the carriage there if you'd like and make the rest of the trek to Whiterun on foot."

"Why do you need to stop?"

"Business," she said. Instantly, she could tell that she'd said the wrong thing. His face closed down, the hard lines of it unreadable. She sighed; would it never be enough to simply leave it at that? She wasn't sure whether the other Companions required this level of openness, or whether it was only Vilkas' stubbornness, his difficulty. Eventually, he nodded, though she could tell that some fence had gone up between them again. It made her feel, strangely, rather exhausted and a little frustrated as she slouched up the stairs of the Sleeping Giant, glancing sideways at Orgnar before she slipped into the hidden room.

"Made it out alive, at least. I wasn't sure if I was ever going to see you again," Delphine said, as she saw Sigrid slid into the room, shutting the wardrobe behind her."

"Your confidence is bloody awe-inspiring," Sigrid muttered. Delphine had not asked about Malborn, felled by the frost-troll's claws in that reeking cave. The more she knew of the woman, the less she liked her. Though she might be the Dovahkiin, she had the feeling that in Delphine's little chess board, she was but a pawn. At the most a knight, to be moved when she pleased with slashing strokes, but ultimately expendable.

Delphine ignored her, as always, in favor of practicality. "Your gear's safe in my room, as promised. Did you learn anything useful?"

"The Thalmor knew nothing about the dragons," Sigrid said.

"Really? That seems hard to believe. You're sure about that?"

"Why'd you send me if you weren't going to believe me?" Sigrid asked, suddenly furious. She'd risked her life for this woman who could not even believe her when she gave her the hard-worn information? Information for which an innocent man had perished? Disgusted, she reached into her satchel and tossed the dossiers for Delphine and Esbern onto the table. Something, however, held her back: she kept the writings about Ulfric and his interrogators.

The blonde woman had the grace, at least, to look slightly abashed, though she regained her usual confidence easily enough. "You're right, you're right. I just... I was sure it must have been then. If not the Thalmor, who? Or what?"

"They're looking for someone named Esbern," Sigrid said, watching the woman carefully from the corner of her eyes to gauge her reaction. It was instantaneous: she'd truly surprised Delphine for the first time since she'd come down to the secret room and proclaimed herself Dragonborn.

"Esbern? He's alive?" Delphine exclaimed, her hand flying up to her mouth, "I thought the Thalmor must have got him years ago! That crazy old man… Figures the Thalmor would be on his trail, though, if they were trying to find out what's going on with the dragons."

"What would they want with Esbern?" Sigrid, asked, guarded.

"You mean aside from wanting to kill every last Blade they can lay their hands on? Esbern was one of the Blades' archivists, back before the Thalmor smashed us during the Great War. He knew everything about the ancient dragonlore of the Blades. Obsessed with it, really. Nobody paid much attention back then. I guess he wasn't as crazy as we all thought."

"They seem to think he's hiding out in Riften."

"Riften, eh? Probably down in the Ratway, then. It's where I'd go. You'd better get to Riften. Talk to Brynjolf. He's… well connected. A good starting point, at least. Oh, and when you find Esbern… if you think I'm paranoid… you may have some trouble getting him to trust you. Just ask him where he was on the 30th of Frostfall. He'll know what it means."

"Aye," said Sigrid. "Is that all for today?"

"Yes," Delphine replied, looking back down at her plans. "Bring him back safely, if he's still alive when you find him. He may be our last hope to figuring out this puzzle."

* * *

><p>He waited for her outside of the Inn, sitting on the stairs of the sleepy village and feeling strangely out of place as the villagers went about their business, eyeing him curiously. When she emerged from the tavern, she glanced at him apologetically, and he growled, quietly, in frustration. It seemed as though they would always be at an impasse, so long as she did not trust him to keep her secrets, as he would for any shield-sibling. Damned changeable woman; one minute allowing the cart to lull her to sleep in his arms, the next bristling at any hint of intrusion into her affairs. He preferred not to think of it tonight.<p>

By the time they made it back to Jorrvaskr, it was well into the evening. Sigrid took her leave and immediately collapsed into bed, not even bothering to change from her bloody shirt. Vilkas, however, found it nearly impossible to sleep. He tossed and turned, but whether he was tired or not, sleep refused to come. The idea of going to the woman and waking her seemed appealing, but impossible. Not in the halls of Jorrvaskr. And to come to rely on _anyone_ in such a way was abhorrent to him. No, as…good…as that had been to do that in Windhelm, he could not afford to rely on her again. Instead, he threw back the blankets and slid out of them, pulled on his breeches and a shirt, and went up to the roof. The climb was easier, now that he was taller, now that his arms had the strength of growth and years. But he remembered every step as he had taken them all of those years ago, when he and Farkas had hidden from Skjor on the very edge of the roof. He looked at Whiterun spread below him, the light of the aurora lending the sleepy town a strangely magical air.

Scuffling at the edge of the roof alerted him to the presence of another, and with a quiet but solid movement, his brother sat down next to him.

"What are you doing up here?" Vilkas asked.

"Heard you get up," Farkas replied, "Thought I'd see what you were doing."

Vilkas gestured his hand across the skyline, indicating Whiterun. "Sitting. Thinking."

Farkas nodded. His pale eyes looked, too, and Vilkas wondered, briefly, what his brother thought of when he saw at the rooftops of the buildings of their home. Whether he was troubled by the same emotions that plagued Vilkas. Most likely not—Farkas never seemed troubled by anything, with that frustratingly calm composure that was almost impossible to break. "You've been acting strangely since you came back from Windhelm," Farkas said, after they'd sat in silence for several long minutes. "Tell me what happened." It was not a question, it was an order.

Vilkas told him, then, of the horrors inflicted by Calixto Corrium, the body he and Sigrid had discovered when they had entered Windhelm in the night. A brief recounting of the investigation and a mention of the house of horrors they had discovered together. The blade slashing through Sigrid's shirt, cutting her flesh. The man's broken body on the stones of Windhelm, looking small and sad and innocuous. Of the terrifying rage he had allowed to overtake him.

"Terrible, yes," Farkas said, still looking out at the town below them, instead of at Vilkas. "But somehow, brother, I don't think that was all that troubles you."

He wondered, briefly, whether he shouldn't keep the knowledge from Farkas, that he had remembered everything now. Perhaps it would be better to avoid inflicting such pain on him, too. But no: he never lied to his brother and was not about to begin now. And so, taking a short, sharp breath, Vilkas rubbed one hand over his eyes. "Something about that basement, Farkas… the altar room, and the stench—I suddenly remembered everything about our lives before Jergen. All of it, all at once. Ma. Da. The necromancers. The circle."

"Ah," Farkas said, as though that explained everything, as though within that one short syllable, he could answer everything. "Yes. I can see how that would be troubling."

"You have no idea," Vilkas said, a sharp, humorless bark of a laugh escaping him.

"I do."

"What?"

Farkas looked sidelong at him in the dark, pale eyes gleaming. "I've always remembered."

Vilkas felt this revelation almost physically, a sharp punch in the chest. "All of these years? You knew? You had… that… in your head?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't think to tell me…?" He wasn't even angry, just confused. There had been the horrors, yes, but also things that he would have liked to know: the color of their mother's eyes, the sound of their father's voice.

Farkas shrugged, and took a small piece of loose wood that had chipped from the roof, throwing it off into the darkness. Neither of them heard it fall. "Look at it this way, Vilkas… That last day, the day that Jergen found us, he wouldn't even have noticed the cave, if you hadn't gotten it into your head to throw yourself at the head mage when he came for me with the sacrificial knife. You didn't even have any weapons, just your fists and your teeth, and for such a small child, that wasn't a hell of a lot. Man threw you right into the cave wall when you bit him. The commotion drew Jergen to us, the noise and the yelling. If he hadn't come, we both would've died that day." He looked away again, into the distance, relieving the moment in his head, his shoulders hunched. "You were always doing that, when we were whelps. Trying to protect me, even when you couldn't protect yourself. Even when I was always bigger than you, just…not as brave. And after we'd been at Jorrvaskr for a couple of days I realized you didn't remember any of it. Maybe hitting your head did something to you. I dunno. I didn't know if telling you about Ma and Da would make you remember…the rest of it. And you seemed happier not knowing. And I thought maybe I could protect you, too. For a change." This was quite a speech for Farkas, who was generally a man of few words, and his brother fell silent after it, as though he had used up his quota for the rest of the day.

His eyes stung, and for a brief second, the world blurred. It straightened as he swallowed, thinking of this. The twins had been rescued before their fifth winter, and were now approaching their thirtieth. For all of those years, Vilkas had known their history but had been cushioned from the true impact by his mind, and it had still troubled him. The occasional terrifying but indistinct nightmare. The fury of never knowing his parents. And Farkas had remembered. Had remembered all of those years. Had remembered those tastes and those smells, the sight of their mother's corpse dancing, of their parents' bodies defiled by evil, rutting men. And he had born it all alone, for Vilkas' sake. And he was Farkas, as ever: cheerful, calm, irreverent. Without Vilkas' fury. Kind. A good man. A solid man. A man of deeper waters than anyone could have suspected. With a sudden rush of shame he realized that his brother was stronger than he had ever guessed, had ever known. There were no words appropriate for the situation, nothing he could think to say, but something came out involuntarily anyway: "_Shit_."

Farkas laughed, then, and he had never heard such a welcome sound. "Aye, brother," was all that he said. "Look. You don't need to say anything else. I know. I do."

"Aye," Vilkas said, and looked away, so that Farkas would not see the roil of emotions on his face. They had lived through such horrors together: their parents might be gone, and the years of memories might have been lost, but they had survived because of each other. Farkas would always be here at his side, his shield arm, a solid, dependable rock. As he would always be there for his brother. Despite the lingering memories, he found the thought strangely comforting.

And the brothers sat together on the roof in silence until sunrise, watching the new day's light creep slowly across the tundra, as always, the renewal of an ancient promise.


	19. Homecomings

__**AN: **Sorry this chapter is a little shorter/more focused on character stuff. There will be action in the next chapter, I promise! Also if anyone who hasn't read the _First Lessons_ series is curious about the backstory mentioned briefly in the last scene of this chapter, that story explains it a little more thoroughly. Thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed-your thoughts & comments always make my day. :)

* * *

><p><em>Never a whit should one blame another<br>for a folly which many befalls;  
>the might of love makes sons of men<br>into fools who once were wise._

—The Poetic Edda, from _Hávamál_, translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>After the latest meeting with Delphine, Sigrid made the decision that she would not leave for Riften just yet. She could be forgiven for taking some time to recuperate, after escaping from an embassy full of elf-wizards and having her shoulder sliced open by a murderer. In her heart, she knew she would leave to look for the old man sooner rather than later, but for now it was easy to pretend that she had no responsibilities beyond enjoying Jorrvaskr's homey comforts. Morning found her sitting on the front steps of the mead hall, allowing Tilma to cut her hair. The old woman snipped carefully with her sewing shears, clucking her tongue in disapproval at the messy state in which Sigrid had returned to her. She punctuated every snip with dire mutterings about blood and torn shirts, until Sigrid gradually felt both more human, and greatly chastened. "Thank you, Tilma," she said politely, and the woman only shook her head, and bustled off, still grumbling about the shirts.<p>

Running a hand over her newly sleek skull, she sat on the stairs in the cool winter sun, savoring the strange feeling of silence, of not having to go _anywhere_, or do anything. She knew from experience that the itch would start again before too long, forcing her from the safety of the Whiterun walls, but for the moment she simply enjoyed the quiet, wearing her own clean clothes and the opportunity to go about her business at her leisure. Not, at this point, that she had any business. And that was part of the problem. Well rested, clean, full, and unbloodied—and bored.

_Well, _that _break lasted for all of an hour,_ she thought sourly to herself. After years of being constantly on the move, constantly fighting, even a few days' rest and relaxation made her antsy. Heading to the practice yards, Sigrid threw herself into exercise, into practice. Perhaps she would feel more at ease if she wore herself out. It worked, for a bit, before she found that beating the mannequin to a pulp left her feeling even less satisfied than sitting on the stairs had done. Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she looked up and saw that Ria was watching her from the corner of the practice yards, almost shyly lingering just out of sight. _I was curt with her the last time she asked questions_, Sigrid thought. She remembered being younger, though, when she had killed a man for the first time. She had not had the luxury of bashfulness.

"Oi!" she called. "You, girl. What are you doing over there?"

"Er, just watching you," Ria said, cheeks a bit red.

"You look like you want to say something else," Sigrid said, and sighed, silently. Being curt to the girl was like kicking a puppy—she was so eager to please.

"I just…" Ria kicked at the dirt of the practice grounds, and looked up again, eyes suddenly fierce. "You seem so _sure_ of yourself when you're fighting, Sigrid. I went with Vilkas to the Halted Streams camp and it was awful. I did everything wrong and I don't know _what _I was doing wrong and Vilkas was just so—so disappointed with me and—and—"

"Hey, hey," Sigrid interrupted. "Slow down. A bit at a time, please." She sighed again: it would be incredibly unfair of her to dismiss the girl now. She herself would be nothing had the Merry Men not taken the time to train her to fight, instead of solely to hunt. _I can repy the debt_, she thought, _and without the terrible price that came with it when I learned_. While Ria explained, Sigrid directed her to take a practice sword and join her on the training grounds.

"Right," she said, taking a deep breath and setting her shoulders. She knew she was not a good teacher, far too impatient. But it seemed that no one in the Companions had stepped up to the task either, and it would fall to her. At the very least, it would be a distraction for the rest of the afternoon. "Let's start from the beginning. The first thing you have to remember is to always know _where_ you are in relation to your opponents, especially when you're fighting more than one man…"

* * *

><p>Vilkas took a tray with hot coffee and breakfast down to Kodlak's quarters in the morning. He hadn't been able to sleep that evening, and so it wasn't difficult to get the first choice of Tilma's creations. Truth be told, he was a little worried for the old man, who had been staying in his bed more and more often since Skjor's funeral. Such things could wear a man down.<p>

Kodlak looked up when he entered, still curled up in his bed, and sighed. "You're a good man, Vilkas," the old man said sadly, "But I wish you didn't have to see me like this." He struggled to sit up; some days seemed better than others. This was not one of the best. Vilkas looked away, focusing his attention on a book that had fallen to the floor next to Kodlak's bed, so that he did not witness his shame. When Kodlak had managed to get himself into a sitting position, Vilkas handed over the tray, balanced precariously on his knees. As Kodlak ate, picking at his food, Vilkas filled him in on the happenings of Jorrvaskr, hesitating just a moment before informing the old man of the private war that Aela had inducted Sigrid into. "I already knew," Kodlak admitted, and at Vilkas' surprised look, he chuckled. "Come now, Vilkas, I'm not in my grave yet. And if you think to hide secrets from _this_ drunken rabble, well, I've got an unpleasant surprise for you."

It heartened him, to see that, at least, Kodlak had not totally given up on the Companions, consumed with his illness and search for a cure. Despite this, he could not bring himself to tell the man that he had transformed, and that Sigrid herself had been inducted into the beastblood. Instead, he made idle conversation with the old man about his research progressions, and then took his leave. In addition to hunting down the Silver Hand, he would have to increase his efforts to find the cure as well. The Companions needed a Harbinger who could give his full attention over to them, not the twilight haze in which Kodlak seemed to exist, these days. Before he left, Vilkas glanced sideways at his mentor and murmured, "Please consider, Harbinger, attempting to make more of a—presence—in Jorrvaskr. They need you still."

"I know," Kodlak said, sounding suddenly exhausted. And he turned away towards the wall.

He suppressed a growl of dismay, walking up the stairs and out onto the Jorrvaskr porch; he was only one man, and there was only so much he could do.

Once outside, however, he was distracted from his thoughts by a very strange sight: Sigrid, drilling Ria on the practice grounds. Farkas watched them from the porch, a small smirk on his face as he shook his head. The woman gave no mercy to the girl; though they fought with practice weapons only, the hard raps she dealt to her knuckles and sides echoed loudly in the quiet. "No," she said sharply, as the young Imperial gasped, "I would have just cut off your fingers if these were real blades. You _must_ watch the movement of the eyes, not the movement of the arm."

Vilkas strolled up to stand beside his brother, watching as well. "Well, would you look at that," he said.

"Wouldn't want her teaching _me_," Farkas said, with a brief grin. "Ria's doing well, though. The girl is brave, she only wants experience."

"She was overwhelmed in Halted Streams," Vilkas said quietly, so as not to observe the two women, who had noticed neither of the brothers enter onto the grounds, so absorbed were they in their lesson. "I didn't have the patience to do it myself, but she does need to be…drilled. To fight with her head, not her heart."

"I didn't think it'd come from _her_," Farkas admitted, and Vilkas shot him a brief sideways look, unsure what he meant by it. Mostly, though, he was surprised by the ease of it, watching the woman training a member of the Companions, idly chatting with his brother while they observed. He frowned. Things were shifting in the ranks, and as ever, he had no idea whether to flow along with the tide or try to dam the river.

* * *

><p>Sigrid found Ria to be an eager pupil, who had only needed someone to ignore her puppy-dog admiration and force her to learn. At the end of their session the girl was covered in bruises but beaming happily, chattering up a storm as she followed Sigrid from the practice grounds to the baths. "That was wonderful!" she chirped, "Thank you <em>so<em> much!" Shooing her off with an embarrassed grumble, Sigrid wondered again what had come over her. She was not the motherly type, and to take a girl under her wing like that went against every single one of her instincts. But she had done it. Uneasily, she rubbed her hand through her hair. Jorrvaskr was changing her, tugging roots from her body against her will. The last time she had allowed this to happen, without even realizing it, she had returned to the camp to find those very same roots pulled up, destroyed.

It was with such an uneasy feeling in her stomach that she washed herself, luxuriating in the warm water of the bath and the feeling of cleanliness whenever she desired it, before dressing and going about her business. She had a number of questions to ask Adrienne Avenicci about whether certain materials could be tempered and crafted in her forge, or whether such a thing was impossible… The woman listened to her proposition with a stunned face, and in the end said only, "You're welcome to try, but I doubt it will work successfully. I've never heard of such a thing—obviously."

"Well, as long as I've the use of your fires," Sigrid said.

"You've the use of it, but you're paying for any damage you cause," Adrienne said sharply.

Sigrid laughed. "Don't worry, your forge is safe in my hands. It will be some time yet before I have the materials, anyway. And if I can repay you by assisting you in your work…" The smith agreed to the proposition without reservation, then. Even though the pet project of which she'd dreamed would require another dragon yet, spending time at the forge was satisfying, too, and by the end of it her muscles burned pleasantly from the combined exertion of the lesson she'd given Ria and the pounding of the blacksmith's hammer as she forged simple iron and steel items for Adrienne's customers.

As she bid Adrienne goodbye and began the brief walk back to Jorrvaskr, she heard a familiar sarcastic tone berating one of the city's children to stop running about and get out of her way. Lydia! Curses, Sigrid had forgotten all about her erstwhile housecarl. She instantly began a pattern of avoidance, darting away from the main road of the Plains District and around the back of some of the houses. Breathing a sigh of relief, she attempted to figure out how she was going to make her way past the main marketplace without and problems, when she looked up and saw Vilkas, leaning against the wall of a home while a woman, slim and pretty, stood just a little too close to him to leave any doubt in her mind that they were either lovers, or had been lovers. She caught another glimpse of the woman as she retracted her steps, quietly. It was Ysolda, the merchant.

Strangely, she did not find herself angry. She had no expectations of him, no claim. Ysolda was welcome to his moodiness, his arrogance.

A small, treacherous voice in her head whispered, _you're going to miss having him in your bed, though…_

She quashed the thought, ruthlessly, and stalked up the stairs to Jorrvaskr.

* * *

><p>It was one of those rare nights where all of the Companions were home within the mead hall, as opposed to ranging across Skyrim on various jobs, and the party roared in full swing. After the loss of Skjor, these occasions seemed more poignant, more necessary. Even Kodlak came up from his quarters to take his dinner at the head of the long table, though he was more subdued than the rest. Both the food and the ale flowed free, and Vilkas found himself enjoying the evening more than he had expected, for it allowed him to forget the encounter he'd had with Ysolda earlier that evening. She'd cornered him not far from her house, pouting a little bit, and asking whether his sudden renewal of interest in her had been a fluke, her voice a pleasant purr. And to his surprise he found himself answering her rather gruffly that while it had been good, he wasn't sure if it was a good idea to do it again… She'd blinked up at him, her eyes briefly widening in surprise, before she stood on her tip-toes and planted a long, slow kiss on his mouth. "You know where to find me if you change your mind, darling," she drawled, walking off with a sway of her hips.<p>

He watched her go, and wondered, not for the first time, what the hell was wrong with him.

But now, at least, he had a distraction, in the form of the Companions. Njada was currently talking his ear off about the new shield she'd ordered from Eorlund to her exact specifications, crowing triumphantly about how much better it would be than her old weaponry. On his other side, Aela picked at her plate of food. She had been in and out of Jorrvaskr more often than not, spending long days hunting in the woods, though for what prey, she said not. When he tried to speak to her, she ignored him, meeting his gaze with her defiant green eyes and looking down again. The scene on the Whiterun plains had been distasteful for the both of them, and there was a new distance there that he did not know how to breech. Eventually, he gave up on attempting to speak to her and merely set his hand on her arm, a questioning look on his face. She exhaled, long and slow, and looked up again, and nodded one short, sharp nod.

"You were right," she said.

"I—"

"Don't lord it over me," the woman grumbled. "We were wrong to—do what we did without fully informing her. But Skjor has paid the price for it. And now…"

_And now she was alone_. The words lingered, unsaid between them, until he said, quietly, below the noise the rest of the Companions made with their chatter and tale tales, "We need to act _together_, Aela. Especially with the old man the way he's going. We can't afford this subterfuge anymore."

"I know," she said, looking down. "I won't stop until all of the Silver Hand are dead, though."

"Now that," he said, with a bright, wolfish grin, "is where we are in agreement."

She smiled at him, "Welcome home, shield-brother. I'm considering planning a little operation to steal some plans at Faldar's Tooth, if you're interested in taking that assignment…"

"Perhaps—"

They had come to the point in the evening where just a little too much ale had been drunk, and Njada took out her fiddle. Though it always amazed him that the standoffish woman, so quick with her fists, had such a musical talent, she could throw off a quick reel like no other, her strong hands rarely tiring. Instantly, Ria and Athis were up and dancing; both were quite graceful and enjoyed the opportunity to show off. Torvar joined them, though he was not as talented as either of his comrades, he had no shame in his lumbering movements. Ria giggled as she watched him, switching partners from Athis to the Companions' resident drunk. "No, you idiot!" she said as she did, "Not like that, like this!" And she attempted to guide Torvar's steps, though doing so proved to be about as difficult as guiding a bear through a jig.

He could see Sigrid watching them, in a pleasantly alcohol-soaked good humor, hiding a smile behind her hand, before Athis pulled her up from her chair. "Up you go!" the Dunmer said, whirling her around despite her protests.

"I can't dance!" she insisted, and sure enough, though her movements during battle had an efficient grace, her dancing was abominable. She had two left feet and no sense of rhythm in her hips. _Also strange_, his treacherous brain thought, _you would think…_

"Come on, Sigrid, there's always time to learn," Ria said, laughing as she whirled by them, "Or isn't that what _you_ were telling me this afternoon."

"There's a difference between cleaving a man's skull open with your sword and trying to not make a total _tit _of yourself in a reel in front of everyone," the woman retorted, though she did not push Athis away. He could see her squinting drunkenly at his feet, trying to copy the motions with varying levels of success. "One I'm good at and the other I'm _not_."

"You just need to find the right rhythm!" Torvar rumbled, as he cut in, stealing her away from Athis with a quick jerk of her body towards him.

"Well you certainly aren't the one to show her," Athis retorted, "You've two left feet."

"Aye!" Torvar said, "But I've charm and confidence and that more than makes up for it. Just follow me and you'll be right as rain," he added, with a leering smile at the assembled group. Ria was giggling again, and even Sigrid started to laugh, though hers was a hearty noise, bubbling up from her stomach, a little breathless from exertion as Ria stole her now from Torvar. The two women danced together, hands joined and legs kicking, though the girl made faces continually as Sigrid stepped on her feet.

"Oh, you're hopeless!" she managed, in between laughs.

"I told you so," Sigrid replied, totally unashamed. Her cheeks were pink with exertion, the new scar standing out like an angry brand on her face, and suddenly he found himself on his feet, in the middle of the dancers. "Oh, I'm not dancing with _you_!" Sigrid exclaimed, as she dodged him, the words slurring just a little, "I don't think I'm your first choice of partner."

While he started to say _what the hell does that mean_, he then thought better of it: the curious eyes of Ria now rested on them. Instead he shook his head, and offered Ria his arm. He was not a dancer either, and he felt strange and awkward doing it now, despite the alcohol loosening his inhibitions. He realized that he did it more to cover the discomfort of Sigrid's refusal of him, and that he had stood in the first place because he wanted to touch her again. By the time the latest reel had ended, she had disappeared, and when he ascertained that no one was watching him, he slipped out of the party as well, heading down the stairs into the Living Quarters.

She hadn't gotten far; she seemed to be walking in circles around the hallway and arguing with herself, complete with hand gestures and a scowl on her face. "…stop being a bloody idiot," was the last thing he caught from her.

"Who's being an idiot?" he asked, and she looked up, startled.

"I am," she said.

"Why?"

"'I don't think I'm your choice of partner,'" she said mockingly, though he was not sure whether she was mocking herself, or mocking _him_.

And in that moment, mulling over the words, he realized that she must have seen him talking to Ysolda. He _had_ caught motion from the corner of his eye, but he'd been too preoccupied to notice. A smirk spread his lips, unbidden, uncontrollable. "Don't tell me you're _jealous_," he said, unable to resist digging the blade in, just a bit.

"I'm not fucking jealous!" she exclaimed, fists clenched at her sides, "I just… I don't know what I am." And she looked up at him, her pale eyes wide and furious, mostly, he thought, with herself.

"I see," he said, surprising himself with the quiet anger lancing through his words. "It's perfectly fine for you to know my darkest histories. To see me…at my worst. And I know _nothing_ of you. Not your history. Not your…" He trailed off. He did not mean _feelings_, precisely. He didn't even know what he meant. The anger had no particular direction, no explanation, as it boiled up from his gut, and he realized that, at some point during the discussion, she'd swayed towards him, or he'd swayed towards her, in a magnetic pull. _Gods damn it_, he thought, and then his hands were on her shoulders and his lips had found her lips, and they were falling backwards through the door of his room.

* * *

><p>Vilkas shoved her, hard, and she fell onto the bed without protest. He pulled the shirt up and over her head, sliding it up her arms with a brush of his fingers against them, and she marveled that such a light touch could elicit such a shiver from her. She shifted beneath him, to undo the ties that held the binding together, fingers tugging at the cloth to free herself more quickly, struggling out of her breeches. And when it was over, she lay there, naked, as his gaze raked her up and down, feeling his eyes on her almost as a touch, though he did not lay a finger on her. In the candlelight, she could see herself, as he must see her: all of the bits of flesh that, over the years, had been covered by scars and dark inked designs, a body without an ounce of softness left in it. He looked up then, met her eye, and with a glint of amusement in his face smirked. "Ysmir, woman, you're a mess."<p>

She pushed herself up onto her elbows and grinned at him. "Aye," she replied, "Definitely nothing like your Ysolda. But I'm a _proud_ mess—" then gasped as his finger traced one of two jagged scars on her stomach, the path of it running from her navel down to the tender spot where her stomach met her left leg. One hand pressed into her flesh, a sudden grip, while the other stroked between her legs, toying with her, softly but cruelly.

"Tell me how this happened," he said, insistent, forceful.

"That one?" she said, inhaling sharply as his mouth found the scarred skin now, breathing warmth and life into the cold line of raised tissue with his lips and tongue. She couldn't suppress another shiver as she answered."Ah—that one was a sell-sword outside of Skingrad." His mouth and hands were still moving, teasing, and she forced herself to keep still as his lips found a star-shaped puncture on her thigh.

"And this?" he murmured into it. Oh, oh, what he was doing with his tongue was really very unfair.

"Arrow," she gasped, "In Thorn." Part of her wanted to demand to know if he would do this to her entire body, for the scars were many and legion, and she had no idea whether she could withstand such torture for long. Under his hands and his mouth every inch of her felt afire with sensation, even in those scarred places long dulled to feeling. Places she thought would never feel again burned anew.

He, however, seemed unconcerned by her agitation, one finger slipping inside of her, hooking upward, as he came up to her torso again, mouth continuing its unrelenting path, tongue and teeth tracing the ragged claw marks on her ribs. "And these?"

"Khajiit," she said, head tipping back, eyes closed. She wanted him to stop; she wanted him to continue forever. "Corinthe." Her hands gripped the sheets now, as though by holding onto something solid she could keep him from prying all of the secrets from her body. Though in comparison to the other times they'd been together, he was being rather gentle, something about the very lightness of the touch undid her. He'd stopped now, and she opened her eyes again, meeting his dark gaze across the bed, realizing that he was staring at the jagged knife wound that ran along the underside of her jaw, across her neck. Easy not to notice it, if she wasn't exposing her throat to the world. With a sudden surge of his body forward, his mouth was on it now, trailing a line of burning kisses along the mark. "Who did this?" he demanded, and when she hesitated, he nipped lightly at the skin and another finger joined the first, stroking slowly, steadily. A sweet, almost unbearable torture.

"The first man I fucked," she managed, her voice sounding strange and strangled in her own ears, "The knife to the back was his work, too." As she struggled not to move she could feel the strange pain of the muscles of her stomach straining, fluttering, coiled up like a spring.

He growled, low in his throat, and she could not tell at first whether he was furious at the thought of her with another man or the thought of the betrayal. "I'll kill him for you," he said. "Wherever he is now."

She began to laugh, though the noise faded to a groan as he moved his hand again, his thumb stroking outside, fingers dipping inside. "Oh. _Oh_. No, you—_oh_—he's underground, somewhere, in—_oh, fuck_—the Imperial City. I already did that thirteen winters ago."

"Good," was all that he replied, before flipping her over onto her stomach to begin the torture anew, starting with the wound Shamar had left between her shoulders. What on earth was he doing to her? She should have protested the intrusion into her past, but strangely, she found herself telling him, breathlessly, all of the marks on her body, her entire history piecemeal. The scars followed her progress from Morrowind to Black Marsh; from Elsweyr to Cyrodiil in a jumbled, crazed order. Things she had never told anyone, sliding so easily from her lips as he coaxed the information from her with his hands and his mouth, tortured it from her. And somehow it didn't feel wrong to do it: she felt lighter, almost free. To let someone else share the burden of her years on foot, her restlessness, her hunger for adventure. Her moments of weakness. Her mistakes. And now, her need. _This is dangerous_, she thought, he _is dangerous_.

But by then, it was too late. Far too late.

* * *

><p>He lay awake in the bed, watching her sleep. She'd passed out almost immediately after he pulled out of her, and he hadn't the heart or the energy to wake her again and make sure she returned to her own bed. She lay instead in the crook of his arm; her face scrubbed clean of warpaint, still faintly pink from exertion, her arm thrown over his side possessively. He was still unsure what had possessed him to finally demand answers from her, and in this manner no less. Something had snapped. Whether, in the end, it would make any difference at all, whether she would still run off on whatever harebrained adventure the Greybeards had created for her. Or why he even cared at all. Why he'd almost stopped touching her when she'd told him that the first man she'd fucked had cut her throat, presumably left her for dead. The sudden rush of possessive fury startled him. Her entire history, even jumbled and out of order, seemed surreal. He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen her fight, hadn't seen the determination of her, the efficient, compact weapon of her body.<p>

_That's what you get for fucking a legend in the making_, he thought sardonically. _Your world turned upside down without any rhyme or reason for it_. The legend in the making snored, yawned, and burrowed into his chest. At that point, he closed his eyes and forced himself to sleep, because the idea of contemplating the entire situation any further was exhausting.

In the morning, she was still asleep when he woke, and he slid from the bed, carefully, so as not to wake her. She slept soundly still as he dressed, packed the supplies he'd need, and left her there, one arm thrown over her face, body slightly exposed by the blankets.

He needed time to think.

At the very least, he needed a distance between them.


	20. Pursuits

**AN: **Sorry for the super long delay in updating, guys. My computer died last week, and so I've had to buy a new one and shift everything over. It's been a long, slow process and I've had a hard time getting back into writing after that. But anyway, hopefully I will be updating more regularly now.

Two quick notes: thank you again to everyone who's been reviewing, and to everyone who's been reading—I saw on the stats the other day that you've passed 10,000 hits! Which may be piddling to some people but that's a lot to me. :D I appreciate each and every one of you, and hopefully you'll continue reading. Second, I've taken a few liberties with the Daedric quest in this chapter—as you'll see. I think it fits in really well with the story though, and so it's worth it.

* * *

><p>…<em>the death [be avenged] on you,<br>if you were a wolf out in the forest  
>with nothing of your own and deprived of happiness,<br>if you had no food except when you glutted yourself on corpses._

—The Poetic Edda, from _Helgakviða Hundingsbana_, translated by Carolyne Larrington

* * *

><p>She woke, tangled in the crumpled sheets with a dull headache thumping at the back of her skull, to find that he had left her at some point during the night. Not that she could fault him for it, having left him in a similar fashion enough times in the past that at this point she supposed it was only fair. Sigrid lurched out of the bed, wondering how far in the sky the sun had risen, whether she had slept through the day or not. Somehow, judging from the headache, she doubted that she had. This was a situation that required speed: she <em>had<em> to get out of this room before anyone woke up and saw her there. Hastily, she careened around the room, struggling into her breeches and shirt and rushing for the door. She opened it quietly, but ran through without looking, and promptly barreled into six and a half feet of solid muscle and lost her balance, tumbling to the floor.

A hand extended and helped her to her feet, and she met Farkas' solemn eyes. "Good morning, shield sister," he said.

"Ah—good morning," she said, looking desperately over his shoulder at the area of Jorrvaskr reserved for the newer recruits, wondering whether she could push past him and escape into the gloom of the hall.

"Looking for something in Vilkas' room, shield-sister?" he asked, and as always, she could not tell whether there was a glint of humor beyond his bland gaze or not.

"Yes," she said, gruffly, and hoped that he had not noticed the dark splotch of tender skin at the edge of her jaw, "And it wasn't there. Excuse me."

"Your shirt's on backwards, you know…" he called after her.

She ignored him. It was still early enough in the morning that Ria, Njada and Athis were all still passed out in the narrow cots of the new recruits' area; Torvar, luckily, was nowhere to be seen. If she was to leave without further gossip or mocking, she'd have to do it quickly. Thankfully, even now, with gold in her pocket still from the jobs she had undertaken for the Companions, she did not have many possessions to weigh her down. Years of never knowing when she'd need to pack up and flee, when she'd need to leave behind her life in the middle of the night, had taken its toll. Even now in the comforting bowels of Jorrvaskr, everything she owned, everything she would need to bring with her, could fit in a small chest. And it was better that way, especially considering how complacent she had gotten.

Sigrid slipped out of the Hall, weighed down as lightly as she had ever been. Into Riften, and out: that was her intention.

* * *

><p>Vilkas, when he'd left her in the bed, had not had any idea of where he was going or why. He'd only needed distance, time to think. In another time, he would have made the transformation and allowed the wolf's brain to solve his problems, the emotional flatness that came with an animal's mind strangely comforting in times when his human brain couldn't wrap itself around everything. But that option was not available to him now, not after what had happened on the plains of Whiterun with Aela and the woman, not after what had happened with Calixto Corrium, the animal rage he'd allowed to overtake him. Instead of changing, he did the next best thing, which was to run blindly out into the wild, allowing his feet to guide him.<p>

The burn of the cold morning air in his lungs was a comfort, for a time, as was the strain of his muscles, the feeling of pushing his body to the limit. He ran until he couldn't run anymore, and by the time that he came back to himself he found that he was on the road to Falkreath, surrounded by misty forests and trees on either side of the narrow path. But now that he was on the road, he might as well continue. Vilkas slowed his pace, taking a moment to catch his breath as he rubbed one hand across his eyes.

Strange, how the subconscious mind worked… Since the terrible night when his life had rushed back to him in a flood of sense memory, he had had numerous questions that had not been answered. Although he could remember the time in the necromancers' cave, the faces of his parents, he could not remember details. Names, where they'd grown up. He could remember misty woods and a damp, cool air, so it was safe to guess that they had come from somewhere in Falkreath Hold. It had not been what he intended when he'd left the mead hall, but now that he was almost in the city proper… why not make some inquiries and see what he could discover? At the very least it would distract him from the problem of a particularly infuriating, plain-faced woman and his own inability to decipher why, exactly, she had wormed herself beneath his hide quite so thoroughly.

Vilkas had been through Falkreath before, of course, but never since regaining the memories of his early life. Before this, the misty woods had impressed upon him a sense of a strange familiarity and one of intense claustrophobia. He'd found Falkreath itself a bit provincial, depressing, and had always been happy to move on again, home to Jorrvaskr. _But this might be 'home,' _he thought, eyeing the run-down cabins and wooden structures of the city. This wet forest, redolent of rain and rotting wood. This sleepy little village with its obsession with death. Somehow, knowing what he now knew, it seemed entirely appropriate.

The most logical place to start was probably at the Hall of the Dead. Vilkas did not know whether his parents' absence had been noted, or whether Jergen had returned to the cave to bring their ashes back to Falkreath. If he had, however, the Priest of Arkay would probably have a note somewhere in the long rolls of residents who had passed on, the dates recorded in his ledgers like so many shopkeeper's transactions. The graveyard was a massive stretch of land dotted with moss-covered stones, fed by centuries of Skyrim's dead, and the books were clogged with centuries worth of names. He wondered whether his parents' were among them. Whether he even had a family name. Whether there were men and women of his blood still living and breathing in Falkreath, whether he and Farkas were not alone in the world after all.

The cemetery, which dominated Falkreath's landscape and its spirit, was deserted when he arrived. It was still early enough in the morning that the sun had not fully broken through the clouds, though in this Hold, that was more common than not. His footsteps sounded loud in his ears as he walked between the gravestones towards the Hall of the Dead. How many times, as a child, had he dreamed of learning his parents' names? Of knowing his people? To walk this path now, as he had imagined it so many times as a boy, seemed strange, almost as if he walked beside himself. But he remained entirely in the present as he opened the door of the Hall, as it wobbled on its rusty hinges.

Inside the Hall, the close, musty smell of death pervaded everything. He sneezed, and at the noise, the Priest of Arkay, who'd been kneeling before the little shrine, looked up abruptly. Vilkas met the eyes of an elderly Altmer, though the man's eyes were white and scarred and staring. He had never before spent enough time in the city to require going to the Hall of the Dead, and this…elf…was unknown to him. Evidently the villagers trusted him enough to lay their honored dead to rest, so that would have to be good enough for him, though his instincts screamed otherwise, having grown up with Kodlak and Jergen's tales of the Thalmor and the Great War. Innately distrustful though he was, Vilkas swallowed his pride. "Good morning, Father," he said politely.

"Good morning, traveler. And how may I help you, my son?" the elf inquired, mildly. He certainly did not sound like a warrior; his voice tempered by the years and gravelly with age.

"I'm looking for information, actually…"

The elf looked at him sharply, and said, "I'm assuming it's information about someone who's no longer among the living, if you're asking _me._" With the creak of old bones and popping joints, he pulled himself up from his kneeling position and grunted in pain as he did so. "Come here, son, and take a seat at the table. I'm Runil. I've been the Priest of Arkay in this little town since…well, since the Great War ended."

"I'm Vilkas," he replied, and took the proffered seat. Now that he was here, speaking with a man who might have known his parents, if the timing was correct—he felt strange. Off balance. As though saying the wrong thing or asking the wrong question would shatter the opportunity forever. "I think my parents may have lived here at some point in their lives."

"At some point?" Runil replied. "You think…? Ahh. I see now why you have come," he murmured, shaking his head. The blind-looking white eyes met Vilkas straight on, and the old man gestured. "Why don't you tell me the full story?"

And, strangely, Vilkas found himself telling it. A shortened, scrubbed-bare version, to be sure. But the essentials. Perhaps the days of ruminating on it had enabled him to find some sort of acceptance, for he found himself narrating his history as though it had happened to someone else, without any of the turmoil he had felt the night he had reached for Sigrid in the dark. "The long and short of it is, Father, that I thought perhaps there might be some record of them in the books here. Or someone who might have known them."

"Hmm," the elf said, his eyes distant. "I first came to Falkreath in 176… And it seems, from what you are telling me, that your parents must have died around that time. Either that year or the next. I don't personally remember anyone disappearing, but it was some time before the citizens of this village trusted me enough to allow me to tend to their dead."

"Would the names be in the book, even if you can't personally remember them?" he asked, the disappointment sudden and intense. It had been a long shot to try this avenue, but even so he had begun to feel hopeful that perhaps there might be an answer here.

"They might," Runil admitted, "But only if they were buried here. And we bury so many each year, it seems…" he trailed off, the regret heavy in his words. "Sometimes it all blurs together in my mind." After a moment of long examination, he spoke once more. "However, my son, if you give me some time I will do a little more research, take the time to go through the books and make you a list of the married couples who were buried here during the years of 176 and '77. If that would be helpful to you."

"It would," Vilkas replied quickly, "I don't have anything to go upon other than the way their faces looked in my memory. I have no idea whether they were even from Falkreath. A name, even if it's not theirs, would at least give me some direction to look."

"Then I will do this for you," Runil said. "It will take some time, though, as I also have my daily responsibilities to attend to…just yesterday, I performed a funeral for a young girl, dead before her time, a tragedy, really…" He shook his head, as though this action would jolt him back into the presence. "But if you return in a week, or perhaps two, I promise I will have it for you."

"Thank you, Father," Vilkas said.

"Don't thank me," Runil said, with a careless shrug. "You should thank Arkay."

And so Vilkas found himself standing before the shrine. He was not much given to prayer, even in a land where the Gods and demons made their presence well known. Uncomfortable asking anyone for assistance, even a God, he rarely knelt before the shrines. Now he faced the small statue and felt awkward, like a boy in temple with a fidgety set of limbs. If there was ever a time for it, though… and so he placed his hands on its edges, feeling the cool stone warm beneath his fingers, and prayed. He prayed for understanding, and for answers. For the ability to find calm amidst his fury. To know his history. Warmth filled him, first from his fingertips and his palms where they met the stone shrine, spreading gradually up through his arms and to his torso. The strange, glowing feeling of contentment was foreign to him, part of the reason why he rarely sought the blessing of any god. He shuddered, taking his hands from the shrine, and reminded himself that his soul belonged to Hircine, no matter Arkay's temporary blessing.

"Thank you again, Father Runil," Vilkas said, suddenly eager to flee the stifling Hall and emerge into the cool Falkreath air again.

"You're welcome, son," Runil said, with a thin smile. "Return to Falkreath soon, and perhaps we will begin to unravel the mystery of your past. And one more thing…I lost a journal, some months ago, while exploring Moss Mother Cavern in this hold. If you happen to be traveling that way and find my little book…I'd appreciate its return."

"Of course, Father," he replied. It would be the least he could do, if he could only receive some sort of an answer…

Despite the Altmer's helpfulness, Vilkas was still glad to escape into the open air. He stood outside of the Hall, taking a deep breath to clear his nose of the smell of the embalmed bodies, though part of the smell, he was sure, was born from memory. The vast cemetery, which had been empty when he went to visit Runil, now held two dark figures, a man and a woman, crouched before a fresh grave. The woman slowly placed a flower upon it, tears streaming down her face, while her husband clutched her shoulder protectively. Vilkas remembered the Priest of Arkay mentioning something about burying a child, and sighed. These were in all likelihood the grieving parents: the intense smell of anguish and salt around them choked out all else.

"Who's died?" he asked, instantly regretting the bluntness of the words. But after the experience in Windhelm, with the vile murderer, he knew that he could not simply walk by without asking further questions.

"Our daughter," the man said, looking up. He was a sturdy Nord, his eyes red-rimmed and veined with sleepless nights. "Our little girl. She hadn't seen her tenth winter."

"How did she die?"

"She was…he ripped her apart. Like a sabre cat tears a deer. We barely found enough of her to bury."

At the words, he felt an intense sense of foreboding. He had suspicions already but could not voice them, not to these people, so lost and alone in their grief. "Who did this?" he asked, instead.

"Sinding. Came through as a laborer. Seemed like a decent man. He's stewing in the pit while we figure out what to do with him, if you've got the stomach to look at him. What could drive a man to do something like this?" The man's eyes filled with tears again; though the Nords were a stoic people, at times even they reached their breaking points. The death of so young a child, especially an only child, could bring even the strongest of men to his knees. This farmer was evidently one of them. His wife never even looked up, her hands buried in the dirt of her daughter's grave, as though the contact could somehow resurrect her.

"It's better you don't ask that question," Vilkas replied shortly. "The answers are never the things you'd want to hear." And then he realized how that must have sounded, and sighed. The years of living by his blade had hardened him, in ways that he did not always sense immediately. "I'm sorry for your loss," he added, and strode off towards the Falkreath barracks, unable to continue intruding upon such a private moment. It didn't take long, not in a town as small as this one. The barracks, however, were large and imposing, by far the largest structure in the village.

The guard at the door eyed him suspiciously. "What business have you in the barracks?"

"I wish to speak with the prisoner, Sinding," Vilkas said shortly.

"Don't know why you'd want to talk to that freak," said the guard, "But it ain't like he's going anywhere so I don't see the harm in it. I'm watchin' you, though. No funny business."

Vilkas did not respond, and instead strode quickly through the barracks. The guards not on duty relaxed in the torchlight, playing card games and arguing about local politics, and the air smelled of sweat and rust and roasted potatoes. None of them looked up when he walked by; evidently, the fact that the guard at the door had let him in served their purposes, or perhaps they simply couldn't be bothered on their time off. Vilkas shook his head; this sort of laxity would never pass in Jorrvaskr. He went down the steep set of stairs to the jail, a mildewed, damp room. Across the room he could see the jail cell, where the dark figure of a man sat in knee-deep water that had collected at the bottom of the jail.

As Vilkas approached, the man's head jerked up and he stood, splashing towards the bars with a determined look to his face. Naked from the waist up, dressed only in a pair of ragged trousers, he had shoulder-length hair and an exhausted, haunted look on his face. And in that instant, Vilkas knew the reason he'd gone berserk and torn the girl to shreds, or at least _how_ he had done it: the man was a werewolf. Sinding gripped the bars of his prison, his tired voice lacking any venom as he asked, "Come to gawk at the monster, have you?"

Vilkas' mouth was pressed into a thin, furious line now: there was nothing, besides the Silver Hand, that he hated so much as werewolves who could not control themselves, who went feral and destroyed lives. Men with as little discipline and honor as beasts. "I hear you attacked a little girl," he said, his voice emerging in an accusatory growl.

Sinding melted back from the bars, shivering a little, though with cold or emotion Vilkas couldn't tell. He turned his tortured eyes on Vilkas, voice pleading. "Believe me, it wasn't anything I ever intended to do! I just…lost control." Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes as he blinked them angrily away. "I tried to tell them, but none of them believe me! It's all on account of this blasted ring."

"What ring?" Vilkas demanded.

"This is the Ring of Hircine," Sinding said, holding up his hand to reveal a carved, rough-hewen stone ring with the fierce head of a wolf as its signet. "I was told it could let me control my transformations. Perhaps it used to. But I'll never know. Hircine didn't care for my taking it, and threw a curse on it. I put it on… and the changes just come to me. I could never guess when. It would be at the worst times. Like… with the little girl." He looked at Vilkas, and sighed. "You know, kinsman."

"I don't know, _kinsman,_" Vilkas said, feeling the hot flush of fury in his chest. How dare this sniveling child-killer presume that they were in any way the same? Sinding was a weakling, who preyed on the weak, who was unable to control his own bloodlust. He and Vilkas were nothing alike—_nothing_ alike. And as he came closer to the cage, baring his teeth in a rumbling growl, he said, "Unlike you, I have _control_ over myself. You are an abomination. An insult to those of the beast-blood."

"That's why I wanted the ring…" Sinding sighed. "I knew I had problems… controlling myself. It was said to give men like me control, over my secret, my shame. Now I may look like a man, but I still feel the animal inside of me, as strong as ever."

"You should have learned the hard way," Vilkas said, the fury unabated. The man couldn't even accept responsibility for his actions? To blame a ring, however powerful, seemed anathema to him. "You should have learned the way that the rest of us learned. By force of will. By experience. To take control of our own lives, rather than relying on some daedric influence."

"I know, kinsman," Sinding said, "But it's too late for that now. It's far too late. And I can never forgive myself."

He was not lying, at least. Vilkas could see that he was truly remorseful for what he had done, but remorse would not bring a ten year old girl back to life, would not reunite her with her grieving parents. He thought of Sigrid, her transformation without proper guidance and her inability to control it until he had taught her. Would she have ended up the same way that Sinding had, without him? Would she have been the one in this dank cage, with grief on her face and innocent blood on her hands? "What will you do now?" he asked, the discomfort at the thought, at how he would have reacted to finding _her_ here, cutting through his blinded rage.

"I've been looking for a way to appease Hircine," Sinding said. "There is a certain beast in these lands. Large, majestic. It's said that Hircine will commune with whoever slays it. I tracked it into these woods, but then had my… accident with the child. I want to beg his forgiveness. Give him back the ring. But while I'm stuck in here, the beast wanders free." He sighed, morosely, as though he had totally resigned himself to his fate.

In that moment, Vilkas made his decision. "I'll take the ring to Hircine."

"Oh my. You would do this for me?" Sinding's face lit up with relief, with hope and fear. "Here, take it," he said, holding out his hand through the bars. Vilkas took the ring from him, but did not put it on his finger, instead slipping it into his pocket. "I don't want anything to do with this wretched thing anymore. Seek out the beast. He wanders these woods. Bring him down and… well, the Lord of the Hunt should smile on you. I wish you luck, but should leave here while I still have my skin. Should our paths cross again, I will remember your kindness. Farewell!" And before Vilkas could interrupt him, the man's face began to lengthen and the tell-tale crack of bone signaled the impending transformation. The hair sprouted and his form stretched, and with a howl, he clambered up the well with sheer force of claw and will. Too late to stop him. Vilkas turned on his heel and hurried from the room.

"You! You were talking to that murderous savage. And then he escaped. What are you hiding?" one of the guards demanded, running forward, though it was too late to prevent Sinding's flight.

"The door of the cell is locked," Vilkas growled, "And if you think I've the ability to levitate a man, you're bloody wrong." And he shoved past him, out into the barracks proper. So he'd have to hunt a beast of some sort, was it? Well, that was one thing he knew, at least. The hunt. The kill.

The blood.

* * *

><p>Sigrid's journey to Riften was rather uneventful. She kept a quick pace, so lightly burdened was she, and the usual road troubles easy to dispatch. Now that she had been getting regular hot meals and a decent night's sleep every now and then, she found herself much stronger and better equipped to battle bears or bandits or whatever the road threw at her than she had been when she was first dragged across the border into Skyrim against her will. She almost gloried in it—it had been a few months since she'd felt so capable. Or alive.<p>

And in a strange way, she welcomed the interruptions. Driving her sword through the face of a bandit who'd unwisely attempted to rob her made her feel a little better about the uncomfortable, unfamiliar feeling that had gripped her when she saw Ysolda cozying up to that insufferable bastard. That still roiled in the pit of her stomach. It simply did not make sense. She was not a jealous person by nature. She had never been possessive. One wasn't, not in her line of work, when a lover could turn out just as easily to be a mark or an enemy, when you never knew when you'd see someone again, and whether you'd be on the same side of the battlefield line the next time you met. She felt most comfortable bedding a man and then leaving him to his own devices. And yet—and yet. She was never a woman to think too deeply about her feelings, for they were never particularly complicated. The emotions she felt most often, after all of those years on the road, were hunger, fury, and fear, all of which were easy to parse, easy to solve. When hungry, one ate. When angry, one destroyed something. When afraid, one destroyed the object of the fear. But she could not find an easy solution to feelings that made no sense to her, and that was troubling in itself. This was not a situation in which she could lash out and murder the opposition standing in her way. And in the way of _what_? There was the lingering, uncomfortable thought that this new possessiveness had not reared its head until she had learned she had the soul of a dragon, until she had allowed herself to use the tongue of the dovah… Until she had begun to understand their words. Perhaps it was mere coincidence. It certainly couldn't have been _him_.

Outside of Riften, the guard stepped in front of her, glaring at her through the slit in his helmet. "Hold there!" he barked. "Before I let you into Riften, you need to pay the visitor's tax."

"What's the tax for?" she asked, unable to quite keep a sneer from her voice. Riften, she had come to learn, was especially corrupt. But they would soon learn she was not an easy mark.

"For the privilege of entering the city. What does it matter?" he snapped defensively.

"This is obviously a shakedown," Sigrid said, smirking. So obvious, in fact, that a babe would not have believed this tale of a visitor's tax. She fixed the guard with an intent gaze, challenging him to continue to attempt this face.

He looked away, ashamed, and muttered, "All right, keep your voice down… you want everyone to hear you? I'll let you in, just let me unlock the gate."

She threw him a cheery smile and a sarcastic thank you as she strode through the gates. Riften was a town of docks and weathered wooden houses, centered around filthy canals that stank of dead fish and rotting garbage, more intense now that she had taken the beast-blood. When the wind picked up, it almost made her gag. The city had a stench, both literally and figuratively—the corruption of it was legendary. She had been here once before, on the embarrassing errand that Vilkas had given her, and she hoped that the Priest of Mara she had punched into submission had either forgiven or forgotten her—the latter seemed unlikely, and she had the distinct feeling that getting punched in the face by a sell-sword was not something even a priest of love could forget. Best to get her business finished and leave again, before she vomited on the sidewalk or someone attempted to slip a dagger into her back.

The main marketplace was, at mid-day, a hive of activity, with the calls of the local vendors rising above the chatter of the citizens and the clash of the blacksmith's hammer at the forge. She prowled amongst the stalls, remembering Delphine's instructions to find Brynjolf the Well-Connected. None of these merchants, including a dark elf, an Argonian, and a woman, looked like they would be a Brynjolf.

"Never done an honest day's work in your life for all that coin you're carrying, eh, lass?" a male voiced asked from beyond her shoulder, pleasantly accented with the rolling burr of the hill country. She turned, and met the pleasant brown eyes of a Nord, his red hair combed neatly, dressed in an expensive gray tunic edged in fine gold embroidery. He had the slickness of mien that she automatically associated with thieves—everything about him was a bit too well-kept, a bit too rich. A bit too smooth. "I'm Brynjolf," he introduced himself. "And you are?"

"And I'm looking for someone," she said curtly, refusing to give him her name, instantly on her guard. "Old man. Probably in the Ratway."

"Expecting free information, eh? Help me deal with business first, and then we'll see how I can help you. Besides—you look like your pockets are a little light on coin, am I right?" He smiled at her, a wide flash of teeth that was just a little too familiar for her liking.

"I'm just looking for information," she responded, eyes narrowed. "The state of my pockets is none of your business."

"And I'm a busy man. You help me; I'll help you. That's just how it is."

Sigrid rolled her eyes. "And dragons are _worse_ for business, thief."

"Thief? _Thief_?" Brynjolf exclaimed, a wounded look on his face. "That's libel, that is, lass. I'm an honest businessman! But aye. You've a point there. Your old man's hiding out in the Ratway Warrens and paying good coin for nobody to know about it—well, until now, that is. Tell you what. Go ahead and deal with your business for now. When you're done, find me and we'll deal with mine."

"Fat bloody chance of that, thief," Sigrid said. "I'm a sell-sword, not a pick-pocket. And if I find your hands in _my_ pockets, I'm cutting them off."

"I'd never," he said, with that pleasant, shark-like smile and a wink.

Shaking her head, Sigrid went off to find the Ratway. It turned out to be located below the main level of the city, at the waterline, a gate hidden away in the stone foundations of the city. Before she opened it, she drew her sword and tugged her shield from her back, for she had the unpleasant suspicion that lurking below the face of the city were even more unsavory types than Brynjolf, and she did not mean to be surprised by one. Sigrid crept down the dank corridor, which already smelled foul, of sewers and fetid air. Her foot knocked a piece of rubble out of place, and in the distance, she could hear a muttered, "What was that?"

A man rushed at her through the narrow corridor, screaming "Damn you!" as he did. She met him head on, a broad grin on her face.

"Laddie," she said to him, as she blocked a swing of his heavy iron mace, "You've just made my day. Come on, let's see what you've got."

"Fuck you!" he retorted, the hiss of his companion's arrow following the words as the man shot indiscriminately, without worry that he might hit his friend as well as Sigrid. In the narrow space, there was very little room to move, and so she used it to her advantage, forcing him against the wall. He was big, but not much bigger than she was, and he was a thief, not a fighter. She slammed her head into his and he gasped, shrieking, and while he was distracted by the blood flowing into his eyes from the gash she'd opened on his head, she cut his throat. "Not much, apparently," Sigrid told his corpse.

The second man, screaming curses, backed away from her, keeping the arrows flying as quickly as he could string the bow. In this space it was easy to block them with her shield, which was soon peppered with fletchings. She ran for him, closing the distance and making the bow useless—while he dropped it and tried to draw a dagger, it was too late. She slew him, let the body fall without preamble or postscript. Sigrid took a moment to snap the arrows from her shield, and went on into the depths.

She followed the winding path through a dark corridor, and came to a dead end. Across the gap, she could see a raised drawbridge, but there was no lever on her side of the passage. Of course. She looked down into the gloom, and sighed. There was no other way. With a deep breath, she leapt down into the darkness, landing hard on her feet with a sharp gasp of pain. Luckily, her ankle was not broken, but she had bruised it nastily. No time to worry about that now. She'd have to walk through the pain. As she made her way cautiously through the dark, she found another door by following the faint glow of torchlight. As she opened it, she took a step back and was instantly glad she did: with a hiss of a mechanism turning, viciously sharp spikes shot out horizontally from the stones. Heart pounding, Sigrid went through the door.

Skeevers jumped for her, their nasty little teeth scrabbling ineffectually against her boots. She kicked them away and stomped on the head of one, and with one swing of her sword slit the other one in two. At the noise of the commotion, she heard a voice from behind the door call, "Is someone there?" As she opened it, a man lunged at her, punching furiously with his fists. He could hit, she had to give him that, but he proved no match for steel and her shield slammed in his face. The man went down, tripping and falling into one of the many bear traps he'd set up in the wide open space. She sat down next to his body, catching a quick rest after the constant fighting through the sewer tunnels, and took a deep breath. Instantly, she regretted it, as the foul air filled her nose and lungs.

"Don't know how you managed it down here," she said to the corpse. "But I guess you were probably a little crazy anyway, hmm?"

He, of course, did not respond.

She sat for a few moments, collecting herself, before she got to her feet and continued on, up a set of stairs that led to a surprisingly beautiful little cistern, the sun shining down through the roof to highlight a central ring of ferns surrounding a tree stump. A bloody axe was embedded into it, ruining the peaceful qualities of the scene, and Sigrid sighed: there were constant reminders of the brutality of life in Skyrim, even in the most mundane of places. As she crossed the cistern, skirting around the light and opening the door on the other side, another man attacked her with a mace.

"I'm getting very tired of this," she told him, as she brought her shield up to catch the blow.

"Just fucking die, you ugly bitch!" he growled as he retreated and lunged for her again.

"That's not very nice," she told him, as she kicked his knee in and, as he crumpled to the ground with a howl of pain, "What would your mother say?" She did not wait for him to respond, ran him through with the sword. As she walked towards the door at the bottom of a ramp, Sigrid sighed again: if Esbern had really wanted to hide himself, he had certainly picked a good place to do it. The sheer annoyance of having to constantly fight the lowlifes that populated the sewers would have prevented her from attempting it again. If defeating the dragons didn't depend on finding the old man, she would have turned and left, deeming the stench and the battles unworthy of the effort.

Luckily, nothing attacked her on the other side. She sheathed her sword, and found herself in a broad sewer, with a wide "lake" at the center, filled with dark water of a fathomless depth. Around a narrow walkway at the opposite edge of the room a small encampment was set up around a bar. As she walked around it, careful not to let her feet slip into the filthy depths. At the edge of the strange, makeshift tavern, a gruff Nord, almost as tall as Farkas, warned her from making trouble.

"Don't give me trouble, and I won't give you trouble," Sigrid said, shrugging so that the hilt of her sword hitched up.

"I'm watching you," he said, glaring furiously at her.

The Ragged Flagon turned out to be a bar well-stocked with many varieties of ale, with several tables scattered in front of it. Behind the bar, a handsome man with a sardonic face caught her eye and snapped, "You better have coin to pay for your drinks, there's no handouts here."

Sigrid sighed. "I'm just passing through. All I need to know is whether that's the door to the Warrens."

"Aye, traveler," the bartender responded, and then smirked at her. "Be careful down there, an outsider like you might not be prepared for everything you'll find."

"Your concern is just so touching," Sigrid said, and limped past him towards the door. It opened into a room of more cells, on several levels.

As she walked carefully towards the stairs, she heard a hiss in the dark, the sound of a bound sword conjured to life. The cultured tones of an unseen Altmer echoed. "Is someone there?" As she peered over the edge of the upper level of the Warrens, she caught sight of a glint of gold armor in the gloom, and the Thalmor saw _her._ "There's the Blades agent! Kill her!" the woman yelled.

From her left side, the magic slammed into her, a sudden shock of paralyzing pain that almost brought her to her knees. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to walk through it, and then run, as the wizard who'd been hitting her with lightning bolts backed up frantically as he saw that they hadn't yet brought her to the ground. She stabbed him, viciously, in the gut and he crumpled with a wheezing gasp—the instantaneous stench from him told her she'd pierced the intestines. Grimly, she pulled the sword from his body and staggered to the side, glad she'd thought to bring a healing potion. She didn't drink all of it, swigged just enough so that she felt able to walk without pain rushing across her nerve-endings and in her twisted ankle, and leapt down to the level below to face the remaining soldiers. As they attacked at once, she managed to get in a lucky slash, cutting the woman's throat. "Just…a scratch!" she gurgled, as she collapsed.

"You should not have meddled in the Thalmor's affairs!" the man growled, as he lunged for her.

She had no patience left now, one frustration after another, her fury at the confusion roiling in her chest all exploded from her. The words this time felt familiar, and as she relaxed her throat, the warmth of the magic bubbling up from her stomach re-energized her. "_Fus ro dah!"_ And with a blast of force, the Thalmor was thrown from the ledge, falling with a cry and landing with a snap that told her he'd broken his neck. He moved no further. She made her way further down into the warrens, opening a door and then following the twisting paths around in the dark to find to another open room with a set of stairs that led up. It would be easy to get lost here, she thought, all sense of up or down or left of right confused in the darkness, when all of the tunnels looked the same. Sigrid found herself in another open room now and, and as she passed a cell door a man in a filthy, bloodstained chef's outfit lunged for her, growling, "I'm going to eat you tonight, my darling!" She barely paused, whirling to cut him down.

Taking one deep breath to steady herself, Sigrid continued on her way down the ledge to find a heavily barred, locked door. This looked promising. When she knocked sharply at it, a slot slid open with a creak of rusty metal, and a bearded old man peered out at her with a peevish scowl. "Go away!" he grunted, and began to slid the slot shut again.

Sigrid took a gamble, and said quickly, "Esbern? Open the door. I'm a friend."

"What?" he blustered, "No, that's not me. I'm not Esbern. I don't know what you're talking about."

"It's okay," Sigrid said desperately, "Delphine sent me."

"Delphine?" His eyes narrowed suspiciously, and she could see that he was about to shut the door again. "How do you…so you've finally found her, and she led you to me. And here I am, caught like a rat in a trap." He laughed, bitterly.

"I'm not a Thalmor agent!" Sigrid said, frustrated. "Look, I have the password! Where were you on the 30th of Frostfall? And gods damn it, I'm the one the Blades who have been searching for. I'm the Dragonborn."

"What's what you said?" His wrinkled hand trembled at the slot. "Dragonborn? Then… there really is hope after all?" The laughter again, though this time the bitterness was gone. "You'd better come inside. Quickly now. Thalmor agents have been seen in the Ratway."

"I know," Sigrid said sourly.

She could hear him unlocking the many locks of the door, muttering to himself as he did. Below, she could hear insane laughter and a giggle, followed by a frustrated chant. "Bucket, knife, inkpot, stone—no! No! No!" _Ysmir, could the man hurry up? _She cast a wary eye over her shoulder in case another lunatic attempted to stab her in the back while she was waiting for _this_ lunatic to open his entire lock collection.

Finally, _finally_, the door swung open, and she saw Esbern for the first time. He was quite tall, and still hale and hardy despite his advanced age. His dark eyes held both intelligence and an intense weariness, likely from spending much of his life on the run. As he saw her he smiled, briefly, and gestured enthusiastically for her to enter, and once she did, locking it behind her—though thankfully, only a smaller amount of locks. "Come in, come in! Make yourself at home. That's better." As Sigrid looked around her, she saw that he had set up a surprisingly cozy home for himself, with a bed and a large amount of books scattered around. He gestured for her to take a seat at the table, and settled across from her, fixing her with a piercing gaze. "Now we can talk. You… Dragonborn? Is it really true?"

"Yes. Delphine seemed to think it was important," Sigrid said blandly. Something kept her from telling him of the Greybeards, of their formal recognition of her. Of the ease with which she found herself using the Voice, more and more often.

"Important? Far more than even she realized. If you are Dragonborn, then there is hope after all. For so long, all I could do was watch our doom approach, helplessly," he said, eyes distant.

"Doom? You mean the return of the dragons?" Sigrid said, forehead knitting with a frown. While she was determined to stop the dragons, even if she had to kill every last one of them herself, they were not quite _doom_ levels of terror. After all—she had already killed three of them, and had lived to tell the tale.

"Dragons! Pah," Esbern said scornfully, apparently of the same mind. "They can be killed. The Blades killed many in their early days as dragon-slayers." And then he paused, as though debating how much to tell her, how much she would understand. "No… the dragons are merely the final portent of the End of Days."

"You're talking about…the literal end of the world?" Sigrid said, unsure if she had heard him correctly. If he was really serious. But no: his face, as he looked across the table at her in the gloom of his hideout, was deathly so. She felt her stomach twisting, uncomfortably. It seemed that whatever destiny had in store for her was much darker and more terrible than even she had conceived.

"Oh, yes. The prophecies make clear the signs that will precede the end times. One by one, I've seen them fulfilled," he murmured. "Alduin has returned, just like the prophecy said. The dragon from the dawn of time, who devours the souls of the dead! No one can escape his hunger, here or in the afterlife! Alduin will devour all things and the world will end! Nothing can stop him!" His voice was rapidly working itself into a fierce fury, as though his entire being had for so long been focused on the end of the world without seeing a way to prevent it that he could not help himself. He shook, bits of spittle flying from the edges of his lips.

"It's not hopeless, Esbern," Sigrid said, cutting him off out of fear that he might have an apoplexy of some sort. "I'm Dragonborn."

"You're right, I forget myself. I've lived without hope for so long…" he trailed off, suddenly snapping back to the present, to reality. Once again, he met her eyes, the strong and capable warrior. "The prophecies are clear. Only the Dragonborn can stop Alduin. We must go, quickly now. Take me to Delphine. We have must to discuss. Give me just a moment, I need to gather a few things." And he was off, shoving himself up from the chair as he searched frantically through his meager belongings. Sigrid watched the frenzy, bemused. "I need this… No, no, useless trash. Where'd I put my annotated Anuad? One moment, I know time is of the essence, but mustn't leave secrets for the Thalmor…one more I must bring… Well, I guess that's good enough. Let's be off."

"Right," Sigrid said, "Follow me."

They met Thalmor agents once on their way out, another squad of two soldiers and a wizard. To her surprise, though she had assumed she would have to protect the old man from a certain death, he proved to be able to more than hold his own. With the _whump_ of displaced air that heralded a conjuration, he sent a flame atronach roaring at the Thalmor, as he growled, "For the Blades!" Sigrid found it much easier to face the Thalmor with assistance, and they managed to get through the scrap without serious injuries on either of their parts, leaving the three charred corpses in their wake. She eyed the old man with a wary eye, wondering what other secrets he had hidden away behind that wrinkled, serious face.

"We should keep moving," he said, and she agreed. Once they were back up in Riften proper, she lead him cautiously up the wooden stairs to the market area, intending to catch a cart to Riverwood. As she did, a howl of fury echoed in her ear and a wickedly sharp blade came out of nowhere from her left side, caught her in the arm, in the gap between her armor and her gauntlets. She yelped in pain, but even as she whirled to face her attacker, Esbern had fried the Khajiit to a crisp. Pale-faced, Sigrid knelt and picked through the woman's pockets, singing her fingers in the process. She found a note, luckily not burnt beyond readability:

_I have good reason to believe the target will be coming to Riften in the next few days. Discretion is preferred, but elimination of the target is of the highest priority. The usual restrictions on exposure are lifted—you will be reassigned outside Skyrim if necessary, without penalty.  
>Do not fail me.<em>  
>—<em>E.<em>

Grimly, Sigrid stood. "Come on, Esbern. I think it's high time we left Riften."

As they left, she wondered where this latest chapter of the journey would take her. Whether the end of the world was really trembling on the horizon, as Esbern seemed to think. Strangely, she found herself wishing that she was back in Jorrvaskr. She'd pull him into bed, forget about the apocalypse for an evening. But no: that was not her way. She could not afford to rely on him for anything. The minute she did… Well, she remembered the knife in her back, as clearly as she felt the pain of her bleeding arm.

* * *

><p>At first, Vilkas had been unsure what sort of a <em>beast<em> that Sinding had meant. Instead, he followed his instincts and his nose, prowling around the woods of Falkreath with a hunter's eyes and ears. And then he saw it: at first, just a glimpse through the trees, a flash of white, easy to miss. At first, he wasn't sure that he hadn't imagined it. With great care he stalked forward, putting his heel down first and rolling the rest of his foot slowly forward to follow it. And then he saw it in its full glory: a huge white stag, of unearthly size and beauty, shining in the gloom of the forest, gleaming with health and vitality and magic. It looked up and he met its eyes, not the soft brown of a deer but the furious black of some otherworldly being. He knew, then, that he was in for the hunt of his life.

He tracked the deer over the next few hours, testing its endurance and his own. It would flee, and he would follow its trail, never far behind. Every time that he lined up a shot with his bow, the stag caught sight of him, and would flee, ruining his line of sight. Though frustrated, he also found himself exhilarated, catching perhaps a small glimpse of what Aela felt every time she ventured onto the plains. The challenge of facing a worthy opponent. A wily creature, the deer tried every trick to throw him off, dodging and jolting through the woods. He was forced to play the wind, keeping careful track of when his scent would be carried upon it to alert his prey, and make strategic adjustments to his stalking. When he had the chance, he raised his bow and took aim. The arrow caught it in the chest; it shrieked in fear, but it was too late. The bolt had caught the stag in the lung, and with a groan, it collapsed in the now-moonlit clearing.

As Vilkas approached the carcass, something white and glowing rose from it, and he faced a stag of similar size and shape, but with an uncomfortably human intelligence in its eyes. It looked straight at him and said, in a voice that sounded like the baying of a pack of hounds, bell-like and clear, "Well met, hunter."

"Well met, my lord," Vilkas said, for he knew exactly to whom he spoke. Lord Hircine, the king of the hunt, the huntsman of princes, the father of man-beasts. The being that would have his soul when he passed from this world to the next. It was eerie, to meet him here in the moonlight, to have a premonition of what his afterlife would be like. The thrill of the hunt. The mist of the woods. He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. "What would you ask of me?"

"Your fealty is precious to me, wolf," Hircine howled, those shining eyes holding an otherworldly bloodlust, totally devoid of all feeling, only the desire to bring down his prey. "I will make good use of it. You bear my ring. The one who stole it has fled to what he thinks is his sanctuary." The great shining stag cantered anxiously around the clearing. "Just as a bear climbs a tree to escape the hunt, but only ends up trapping himself. Seek out this rogue shifter. Tear the skin from his body, and make it an offering to _me_." The baying voice was vicious, thrilled at the prospect of blood, at its grisly trophy.

Vilkas thought of Sinding, his anguish and rage at his inability to control himself. Of his weakness. Of Sigrid, the fear in her eyes when he'd found her that night. Of the little girl's parents and their trembling grief. He did not know whether there was a way to end this without more bloodshed. He did not know what was right, and that troubled him, for he rarely questioned himself. But to buy himself time to figure it out, he said, "It shall be done as you ask."

"Fly, my hunter," growled Hircine, "There are others who vie for my favor. A bit of competition. Don't dally while the prey flees."

After it was over, Vilkas would never quite remember how he found the cave. From the outset, it was an unremarkable looking thing, but some instinct drove him towards it, the magic, perhaps of Lord Hircine's Hunt. As he entered the cavern he could see the glow of the moon, red and shining above him, as flocks of orange butterflies flitted past. _The Bloodmoon_, he thought with a groan. Truly, Lord Hircine hunted tonight. The terrible beauty of the grotto could not provide him with a sense of ease this night. Once an era he visited Tamriel, and somehow Vilkas had found himself mixed up in the wild hunt. He followed the path down through the rocks to a clearing, where a wounded Khajiit lay sprawled in a pool of his own blood, the low gasps as he tried to catch his breath and haul himself upright loud in the quiet of the grotto. "Has the Bloodmoon…called… you, fellow Hunter?" he choked out.

"What happened here?" Vilkas asked, though he knew: the hunters had found Sinding, but the man had proven to be more than a match for them. He could not feel sympathy for the dying Khajiit, though. Looking at him brought to mind too many memories, fighting the Silver Hand. Skjor's body burning on the funeral pyre.

"The prey is strong. Stronger than the hunters," the Khajiit said, wheezing, fangs bared. "But more will come. Bring him down, for the glories of Lord Hircine." And the light faded from his golden eyes, and he slumped forward, dead.

Vilkas left the corpse where it had fallen and followed the scent trail further into the grotto, eventually coming to another clearing and looking up. Silhouetted against the brilliant red of the Bloodmoon, stained with the blood of the prey, throwing the rest of the night sky into darkness, Sinding stood perched upon a rocky outcropping, in the beast-form. "Never thought I'd see _you_ again," the man's voice growled, distorted by his elongated mouth, by his wolf's teeth. He moved forward on the outcropping, going down on all fours, body tensed and ready to jump at Vilkas if necessary.

"I've been told to kill you," Vilkas said simply. Let the wolf plead his case. He had hunted, but he did not have to be the executioner.

"And I would deserve it, wouldn't I?" Sinding replied. Even with his voice so distorted, the man sounded sad, resigned. "I can't stop you if that's what you want to do. Hircine is too powerful. But if you spare me, I can be a powerful ally to you. And I would promise to never return to civilized life. I know now that I can't live among people."

Was this promise enough? Sinding, perhaps, deserved to die. But did he deserve it the same way those poor feral wolves that Aela and Sigrid found in Krev the Skinner's stronghold had deserved to die? The way Sigrid might have if he had not interceded? He could feel the pull of the Bloodmoon at his body and at his heart. _Go_, it whispered, _Hunt. Kill. Give in to the wolf. This is your function. This is your desire_. It was at that moment that he made his decision. This was what Kodlak had warned him against. The fury, the bloodlust. The vengeance. And he knew what he had to do. "I will spare your life," Vilkas said, finally, though it cost him, the words gritted out through unwilling teeth.

"Thank the gods," Sinding replied. "Now let's deal with these other hunters. We hunt together!"

And together, they tracked the men through the grotto, not bothering with stealth. This was not the elegant hunt of the white hind: this was the vicious hunt of the predator, destroying trespassers to its land. The fight that followed was short and brutal. Vilkas did not, _could not_, take the beast-form. To do so would be to give in to everything that he had promised the Harbinger. It was difficult: every one of his cells yearned to slide into the ease of the wolf. But, ruthlessly, he kept himself under control, though he sweated with the effort of it. They fought the hunters together, with Sinding's claws raking huge swathes through the men, and Vilkas' sword swinging to block new attacks. He lost track of time, of everything except the hunter immediately in front of him, of everything except the blood on his blade, spattering on his face. When he became, again, aware of his surroundings, Vilkas found that he and Sinding remained in the clearing, surrounded by torn, broken corpses. "The last of the hunters is dead," said Vilkas.

The wolf turned sad eyes upon him. "Thank you for your help. I will make my home here, away from anyone I might hurt. I will never forget what you have done for me this night," Sinding said, and turned from him, loping back into the darkness as the red faded from the moon.

Vilkas watched him go, still unsure whether he had done the right thing. But he knew that, in his quest to become less of a wolf and more of a man, it had been necessary. Suddenly exhausted, he dragged himself from the grotto and into the now silvery moonlit. Waiting for him outside was the glowing aspect of Hircine.

The stag trotted up to him as he stood, and bayed, "Well met again, Hunter!"

"I defy you, my lord," Vilkas said, and wondered whether to say such a thing was truly suicidal. To taunt a Daedric Prince to his face. "Sinding yet lives."

"No, my servant. My loyal wolf," Hircine cackled, "By bringing down my other hunters, you turned the chase inside out. And they were no base prey. You continue to amuse and impress. Go forth, with my blessing."

"I don't want your damn blessing," Vilkas yelled after the Prince, but it had already faded back to Oblivion, leaving him behind with a growing sense of unease and uncertainty. He had attempted to defy his fate, but in the end, he had only satisfied the Daedra's desire for the hunt, for games. Was there no way out of this damnable maze? As soon as he was able, he threw the ring of Hircine into the river, watching the current carry it away.

He had found no answers this day, only further questions.


	21. Prophecies

**AN: **Thanks again for reading. And esp. Sera, haha. No, silence is definitely not as bad as a negative review! ;P

Two quick things: y'all should Youtube Woodkid's song "Iron," because that is pretty much Sigrid's theme in a nutshell. And if you'd like to check out the inspiration blog I've got (I occasionally post snippets of writing as I'm writing, but so far it's mostly just photos I found interesting) it's alldangerisneartodeath at Tumblr dot com. :)

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><p><em>A hall I saw, far from the sun,<br>On Nastrond it stands, and the doors face north,  
>Venom drops through the smoke-vent down,<br>For around the walls do serpents wind…_

—The Poetic Edda, from _Völuspá_, translated by Henry Adams Bellows

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><p>Sigrid still trusted Delphine and Esbern about as far as she could throw them, which wasn't particularly far, but as they left Riverwood for the Reach, even she had to admit that they were exactly who they said they were, no matter what their motives may have been. For the first portion of the trek out across Skyrim's flat, scrubby tundras, they couldn't stop asking questions of the other. After years of believing each other dead, the reunion was bittersweet. Each had survived the great purge of the Blades, where a hundred heads of their agents had been dumped on the Emperor's doorstep, only by hiding carefully, by exercising the most intense levels of paranoia. It seemed that they were among the last of their kind. As the three of them jogged over the grasslands, Sigrid tuned them out: the constant trading of names of warriors they knew who had since passed flowed past her in a now-wordless mumble. She had her own litany of names, and it was busy enough in her head to recite them all, especially if she started from the very beginning, that she couldn't bear to listen to the Blades. <em>Saemund, Dahleena, Findulain, Agrob…<em>

She jolted back to attention when she heard a familiar name as Delphine said to Esbern, "And Skjor, just recently…"

"Skjor?" Sigrid interrupted, and Delphine and the old man both turned to give her nearly identical offended looks. "Not Skjor of the Companions?"

"I see _you've_ been paying attention," Delphine muttered, and aimed a sardonic grin in the other woman's direction. "You didn't know? I thought you Companions shared _everything._" The dry hostility in the sentence startled her; there were layers of meaning contained within it that she could not begin to parse.

"I didn't know much about Skjor. He wasn't the… open and honest type," Sigrid said, thinking of the half-truths and un-truths that had led to her unfortunate transformation.

"He was trained as a Blade," Delphine said, for Esbern's attention had been caught by something on the horizon, and he loped ahead of them, surprisingly strong for an old man. "I never knew him personally, but Esbern did. He managed to escape the purges along with the rest of us, but he dropped off the face of Nirn after the war."

"Skjor, a Blade…" Sigrid said, and whistled. "Well, fuck me. I never would've guessed." Not with the way he'd so thoroughly embraced the beast-blood. Not after seeing the way he fought. Subtlety and subterfuge were not his lots. It was strange, to find out these secrets that she felt she should never have known. Though they had both been Companions, she did not feel she had a right to the secrets Skjor had kept from them. She wondered, briefly, how much Vilkas had known of his mentor's life. "And all that time, he was but an hour's walk from you…"

Delphine's smile was brief and wry, as she tucked a loose strand of sweaty hair behind her ear, pace never slowing. "He never knew me, so he didn't once see through the honest innkeeper act."

"And you never said anything? Even when he was in Riverwood?"

Delphine shrugged, and in that moment she looked her age—in her fifties, and tired. The lines of her face tightened. "You must understand, Sigrid, the life we've all lived since the war. Never knowing where a Thalmor agent might be hiding… unable to trust even those we considered friends. A slip-up meant your death and the other's. I've spent so long as Delphine the innkeeper that it just seemed… impossible. Even speaking to you, Dragonborn, was a huge gamble." When Sigrid did not reply, only glanced sideways with her pale eyes, Delphine snorted. "I hope it's worth it, that's all I can say."

Esbern had looped back around to the two women, having missed their conversation. "Yes, yes, we are on the right path," he said excitedly. "Sky Haven Temple… to think I'd see the day…" The old man seemed overwhelmed by the outdoors, the vast spread of land after having spent so many years cooped up in the Riften sewers. Despite his pallid skin and blinking eyes, he forged ahead with an eagerness and strength that belied his years; occasionally, Sigrid and Delphine had to increase their pace to keep up with him. _Being proven correct will do that to a man_, Sigrid thought, just a little sourly. He'd spent so many years, even before the purge, prophesying the end of the world, only to have been laughed off. In a strange way, despite his agitation every time he heard the words _dragon_ or _Alduin_, Esbern seemed more alive than ever before, practically vibrating with intense, almost terrifying focus.

Despite the Blades' competence in battle—Esbern's flame atronachs and Delphine's sword made quick work of roving bandits and sabre cats alike—she found herself missing the ease of traveling with Vilkas. If she were to be honest with herself, she didn't just miss him, either—she missed Farkas' inimitable outlook on life, and Ria's enthusiasm, and Tilma's cooking. Delphine and Esbern were driven, but she still wondered about their motives: in her brief times at High Hrothgar, the Greybeards had never mentioned the Blades to her, not even when they formally recognized her as Dovahkiin. While she doubted that Delphine and Esbern meant her harm, she also doubted that they were being totally honest with her about their plans. It made Jorrvaskr seem infinitely more appealing: a place where she was only ever asked to be Sigrid, handy with her sword. This, on its own, disturbed her.

Sigrid had never been this far west in Skyrim before. She'd skirted the border in Hammerfell and High Rock, but always managed to avoid returning to the country of her birth. For fourteen years, she hadn't felt ready, and the closest glimpses she'd had were staring over the edge of the border at distant mountains, wondering whether the air smelled the same as she remembered it, whether the wolves still called to each other in the night. But now she saw the Reach for the first time, the breathtaking beauty of its rugged cliffs and harsh vistas, and for the first time, she felt a sense of sorrow that out of all of the world she'd seen, she knew so little of her own homeland. The sharp drops and extreme landscapes reminded her, a bit, of the mountains that bordered the Pale, and the Winterhold sea cliffs, so close to the Sea of Ghosts. One wrong step could send you sliding to your death, following the path of the mysterious collapse of the city so long ago. The Reach was, of course, greener. But the savage beauty of it was the same. Delphine and Esbern seemed unimpressed by the vistas.

As the sun set below the peaks of the mountains, the travelers found themselves moving single-file down the narrow path between two hills, past a mine, quiet and empty. Sigrid tensed; a familiar scent on the wind carried towards her: the smell of blood and magic, of ancient embers that burned hot as the center of Nirn. "Shit," she hissed. Two pairs of curious eyes turned to her. "Dragon," she said, and as she did, now all three of them heard the roar in the distance, the rumbling growl of the monster as its massive form took to the air.

"Esbern, now you'll have your proof," Delphine said, as she drew her sword with a whisper of steel on leather, "And maybe you'll have a better idea of how she does it than I do."

"Well, it is said that the soul of the Dragonborn is—"

"Not _now_, Esbern!" Delphine said, exasperated, as she ran towards the sound, Sigrid hot on her heels. "We're close to Karthspire—we'll have to tread carefully. From what I've heard, the Forsworn have set up camp in the ruins."

"Let's worry about the dragon first," Sigrid said, and then they had no choice, for it had seen them.

The mad, glowing eyes whirled towards them, and the beating of its wings shifted the air, hard, in their direction. As it shrieked in rage, Sigrid remembered, sourly, that first time in Whiterun, before she'd faced Mirmulnir, and her naïve thought that she should take the opportunity because who knew when a dragon would appear again? Raising her shield to block the worst of a blast of fire, she laughed: that poor, younger Sigrid, totally unaware that in a few weeks, she'd be up to her elbows in dragons and on her way across Skyrim to try and find the answers that could potentially avert the apocalypse. _I should have known_, she thought, cutting sharply at the dragon's eye as it landed in a _whump_ of displaced air and earth, _nothing is ever as simple as it seems._ The vicious, snapping teeth just missed her; she forgot everything except for the target. Dimly, she could hear Delphine and Esbern yelling, the explosions of the flame atronach, but her entire world was the sword and her foe, the rage and the fury.

The dragon caught her with one of its giant feet, knocking her to the ground and jolting the breath from her body, but she had not the time to waste. Instantly she'd struggled back to her feet, though her limbs and chest ached, ribs bruised by her own armor, throwing herself back at the dragon with her sword and her shield, slamming the former into its eye and the latter into its throat, fuelled by the strange feelings of rage that this monster would dare intrude on _her_ territory, _her_ Skyrim. And when the dragon collapsed on the ground, the life fading from its eyes and its soul sinking slowly beneath her skin in a rush of warmth and knowledge, she knew with an uncomfortable certainty that those feelings had been very…draconian in nature. The more she fought the monsters, the more of their souls she absorbed, the more she began to understand their feelings, their thoughts. And that disturbed her even more than the burning corpse, the bones still hot beneath her fingers as she harvested them for her pack.

When she became more aware of her surroundings, she noticed that both Delphine and Esbern, stained with smoke and dragon's blood, were watching her intently, especially the old man. "Interesting," he murmured. "Very… interesting. I never thought I'd live to see the day, to be honest."

"I told you she could do it," Delphine replied, a little smugly, as though she alone were responsible for Sigrid's abilities. "Now do you believe that she's truly Dragonborn?"

"Yes…" Esbern said, still watching her with a mixture of wonder and a perturbing cunning. Not for the first time, she wondered what could be going through his head—packed full as it was of lore and paranoia about the end of the world. "But come. Karthspire awaits."

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><p>After the encounter with Hircine, Vilkas' dreams were troubled. In them he always ran in the beast-form, the scent of the forest in his nose and the chill winter wind in his pelt. In the dream he hunted the great white stag again, but as a wolf and not a man. <em>In your true form<em>, the voice in his head whispered. He ran and ran, never tiring. The dream was the best hunt of his life, and somewhere in the woods, the other wolves joined the hunt, following his lead as the pack split up to bring the stag down. They ran through the trees, over rocks, the moonlight glimmering down through the leaves. The stag was a worthy opponent, strong and fast, and it took them a long time to bring him down, Vilkas' teeth catching the stag's nose and the other wolves going for the rump and the hind legs, and the magnificent creature folded in on itself with a howl of pain. He tasted the hot blood in his mouth and a voice whispered, _you could do this forever, you know…_ and then he would wake, a man, sweating in his bed. On the nights that he did not dream of Hircine's great hunt, he dreamt of his parents.

There were many sleepless nights spent, after that hunt, pacing around outside of Jorrvaskr and wondering in frustration whether Kodlak had found his cure. He could not bother the old man about it, for any mention of the situation these days only upset him—it seemed that the process was not as easy as he had thought at first, despite the many hours poring over books. He felt strange, too, speaking of it to his brother, as he neglected to mention that he had asked Runil to research any Falkreath disappearances. The small chance, the possibility that they might have some family left, was a secret he felt better kept to himself until it resolved, one way or another.

And so instead of voicing his concerns, he ran laps around Whiterun before the sun rose, as though by the simple act of tiring himself out he could drive away the dreams. Nightmares. _Staying in one place has you on edge,_ he thought.

He almost welcomed the distraction when Ria, rising early, came out onto the stairs and asked if he would practice with her. "I've been working at the mannequin while you were gone, because Njada won't practice with me anymore because she says I talk too much…" She frowned, and then turned pleading eyes on him. "_Please_, will you? I haven't had a chance since Sigrid left."

"Yes," he said, "But I warn you that I won't go easy on you."

"Good!" she said cheerfully.

With wooden practice swords, they faced each other across the practice grounds, her sword raised in the guard position. As she circled him, he could already see an improvement from Halting Streams; rather than rushing in, she took his measure, waiting for him to go on the offensive. And he did, sliding forward with a smooth feint at her side, before with a twist of his wrists, the wooden sword cutting now at her head. She fumbled a little, but recovered quickly, her own practice weapon raised to block the worst of his chop and while it absorbed the impact, she was already moving, tugging the sword back and cutting now at his ribs. He stepped back, neatly avoiding the blow, and rapped her sharply on the knuckles as he did. Ria yelped, but determinedly fought through the pain, and Vilkas raised his eyebrows, impressed.

"You've been practicing," he said, neither a compliment nor an accusation.

"Aye," Ria said, "I told you. I've been trying to do as she said, to think before rushing in."

He remembered Sigrid taking the time to train Ria, the day before he'd left the woman in his bed, and shook his head. Who would have thought that a few careful words and well-placed smacks on the hand would bear such a result? Grudgingly, he admitted that despite her long absences, Sigrid might have been starting to lay down the semblance of roots in Whiterun, and amongst the Companions. He could see the evidence before his eyes, in Ria's reddened face and steady arm, and he felt vaguely uneasy about it. He wondered where she was, what she was doing. Whether she was still alive. With a scowl, he redoubled his attack on the young Imperial before him, as she blinked in surprise. The sudden, pervasive worry was unlike him, and he put it from his mind with the swing of a wooden blade.

If only he could put her from it so easily.

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><p>At the moment that Vilkas disarmed Ria with a twist of his wrist, Sigrid opened her eyes and found that she lay on the ground outside of a hut stitched together from pelts. Above her, two weathered, concerned faces swam into focus, staring down at her. Everything hurt; she felt much as she had after taking the beast-form for the first time. As though she'd been trampled by a mammoth. She ran her tongue over her lips and found them dry and cracked. "What happened?" she croaked.<p>

"You tried to take on a hagraven and a briarheart at the same time," Delphine said dryly, "And you're lucky that Esbern has some skill in restoration as well as conjuration, or you'd be one very deceased would-be hero right now."

"_Feel_ dead," Sigrid managed, and struggled to sit up. She had experienced this several times before, when seriously injured. Even a complete healing from a talented mage couldn't totally restore the body the way it had been before the injury: it took a few moments to a few days to recover; she'd been out for three days after Shamar had stabbed her in the back and cut her throat. Luckily, this was just an old-fashioned magic attack. She could feel the ghostly remnants of the burning pain of the hagraven's flames and the briarheart's lightning bolts flickering over her skin, as though the nerve endings still screamed in protest from a stimulus that no longer existed. Despite the fact that her entire body ached, she struggled to her feet, satisfied to notice the charred corpse of the hagraven—even if the monster had almost killed _her_, it would not trouble anyone anymore.

"Don't do that again," Delphine ordered, "We can't afford to lose you now, not before we've seen Alduin's wall and learned how to stop the dragons. Not until Alduin is defeated."

"Your concern is touching," Sigrid croaked, and took a deep breath. Despite the pain, everything seemed mostly intact. As she looked around her, she saw that in the time that she had been unconscious, the rest of the Karthspire Forsworn camp had been decimated. Now only the temple remained, looming before them, foreboding and mysterious. "Well, I suppose the prophecy wall awaits…" And she limped up the stairs towards the temple entrance, her erstwhile companions trailing behind her.

Inside, only a few Forsworn remained, quickly dispatched. She was not too proud this time, still weak and tingling, to rely on the Voice, the trembling unease in her stomach as the force flew from her lips like an old friend. Their bodies flew, rag-doll like, through the air, crumpling on the ground, where Delphine's blade bit deeply into tender flesh. And like that, it was over. The silence of the temple and the creeping dark of the shadows ahead flowed over everything once more. It was an eerie silence, as the three of them moved forward. Esbern stared at everything, his face curiously wistful, as though he truly returned home after a long journey.

They came to a gaping cavern, the bridges raised. At the edge were three pillars carved with symbols she didn't recognize. Esbern was muttering to himself as he explained them, "…and of course, the symbol for Dragonborn. That's the one that appears to have a sort of arrow shape pointing downward at the bottom..." She didn't wait—some instinct told her that if the Temple was intended for the return of the Dragonborn, that these symbols would be the key. The ancients had not had the most creative minds when it came to those puzzles. With a quick twist of her hands, she had turned all of the pillars to _Dovahkiin_, even before Esbern had finished talking, and with a groan of disuse and the heavy drop of stone upon stone, the bridge came down with a thud, exposing a new corridor beyond.

"Oh!" the old man said, and then frowned. "Well, that takes care of that."

"Whatever you did, it worked… but be careful," Delphine cautioned, "It doesn't look as though the Forsworn have gotten this far into the ruins, but you never know what traps the old Blades left for the unwary."

She pushed her way through spider webs, shuddering at the sticky silken feel of the strands on her face and limbs, could only hope that the webs were born of age and disuse as opposed to frostbite spiders lurking in the gloom. The only trap remaining proved to be a series of pressure plates, easily traversed by remaining on the tiles that bore the symbol of the dragon's head. Sigrid felt extremely silly walking over them, tip-toeing like a frightened child, but it was worth it to reach the end and pull the chain that lowered the plates and another bridge. Before her she could see carved pillars rising from the gloom, covered in moss and lichens, the heady smell of old wet stones and dirt and time. As the corridor curved around and up to a wide room, a chest in the center and ahead, a blocked door, carved in the shape of a face.

"Wonderful," Esbern breathed, looking around him at the carved wall of the deserted ruin, "_Remarkably_ well-preserved."

"Aye," Sigrid said, "The traps are well-preserved, too." She looked down at the pattern of the floor below her. The swirls of stone curved around in a shape that made her dizzy if she stared too long.

"Ahh…" the old man said, "Here's the 'blood seal.' Another of the lost Akaviri arts. No doubt triggered by…well, blood."

"My blood, no doubt?" Sigrid said sourly. In the end it always came down to that. Her blood. Her soul. Tugged and rent in the balance.

"Yes. Your blood, Dragonborn," Esbern said, and just as quickly, he lost interest in it, wandering off to examine the carvings. "Look here! You see how the ancient Blades revered Reman Cyrodiil!"

Delphine sighed, no doubt used to his digressions even after all of those years apart. "Esbern's probably right. Try using your blood on the carved seal."

She could still hear Esbern muttering in the background about Akaviri invasions and mysterious circumstances, but she ignored him, sighed. "Well, I might as well get this over with, then." And she knelt, drawing the dagger from her boot and holding out her hand, staring at her palm. The lines of it looked the same as they always had, her heartline straight as an arrow, the other two curving away from it. A hand scarred and chapped from years of battles. A little more scarring, a little more blood wouldn't hurt. She did not fear pain. And so she relaxed, wrapping her hand around the dagger's edge and pressing in as she pulled the blade across her skin. Hot blood dripped from her fist, sliding between her fingers as she squeezed them together.

As she did, with a glow of magic (_blood magic_, she thought uneasily, remembering the encounter with Corrium in Windhelm) and another groan of rotating stone, the seal began to whirl, and she stumbled off of it to avoid being knocked to the ground. And with another bright flash of light, the carved head before them swung backward, opening to another gaping darkness.

"After you, Dragonborn," Delphine said, her eyes bright, perhaps with the prickling of tears. "You should have the honor of being the first to set foot in Sky Haven Temple."

A dubious honor, to be sure. She would have rather been feted in Jorrvaskr, with mead and song and a comfortable bed not far away. But this life had chosen her, and she had no choice but to accept it. _You could run_, her treacherous mind whispered, _you fled your responsibilities before, you could do it again. You could leave Skyrim, leave them to their own devices…_ A frown tugged the corner of her mouth down. But she couldn't. She'd begun proving Vilkas' initial impression wrong, and somehow, strangely, she could not bear the thought of giving in, of showing him that he had been right about her after all. And so with a deep breath, she walked beneath the new opening, and into the Temple.

There was another set of stairs, first, leading into a huge, wide room, musty from disuse, rain leaking through the open ceiling. As Esbern walked through the first corridor, he continually muttered things like, "Amazing… you can see how the Akaviri craftsmen were beginning to embrace the more flowing Nordic style…!" Thankfully, Delphine cut him off with a sharp reminder of their true purpose here: the prophecy of Alduin's wall. With a sense of growing trepidation but also of resignation, she made her way to the wall that dominated the scene, carvings of ancient happenings, ancient men. Delphine began to light the torch sconces set up around the room, still filled with ancient coals. In the flickering firelight, the wall loomed above her, as indecipherable as anything else that had happened to her over the last few months. She stared it down, wondering if perhaps with attention she would be able to make sense of it.

Esbern had moved to the far left, peering up at the carvings in wonder. "Look! Here is Alduin! This panel goes back to the beginning of time, when Alduin and the Dragon Cult ruled over Skyrim." The artist had somehow managed to capture the hungry gleam in Alduin's eye, even in the stone; his scaled mouth cruel and full of fangs. Ready to devour the world. She remembered the mad look on his face when he'd met her eye at Kynesgrove, and shivered. "Here…" Esbern was saying. "The humans rebel against their dragon overlords—the legendary Dragon Wars! And Alduin's defeat is the centerpiece of the Wall."

"Do you think that might contain some information?" Sigrid asked, her throat dry again. "History lessons are all very well but so far we don't know anything we didn't know already."

"Patience, girl," Esbern said shortly, as he squinted at the carvings, the torch held close. "You see, here he is falling from the sky. The Nord Tongues—master of the Voice—are arrayed against him." As he spoke, she wondered what it would have been like to have men and women fighting alongside her, men and women who could also use the Voice, and understand the awful, seductive power of its words. To not have been so alone in wondering whether she would be changed by the use of its magic.

"So does it show how they defeated him?" Delphine interrupted, "Sigrid's right, isn't that why we're here?"

"Patience, my dear," Esbern said again. "The Akaviri were not a straightforward people. Everything is couched in allegory and mythic symbolism."

"Of-bloody-course," Sigrid grumbled, "Nothing is ever straightforward. I'm getting bloody sick of puzzles and allegories."

Esbern ignored her. "Yes, yes…coming from the mouths oft eh Nord heroes! This is the Akaviri symbol for _shout_. But there's no way to know which shout was meant."

"You mean they used a Shout to defeat Alduin? You're sure?" Delphine said, her voice both surprised and uneasy.

"Hmm? Oh, yes. Presumably something rather specific to dragons, or even Alduin himself," Esbern said. "Remember, this is where they recorded all they knew of Alduin and his return."

"So we're looking for a Shout, then. Damn it! Have you ever heard of such a thing?" Delphine asked, turning to Sigrid as though she knew any more about them than Delphine did, "A Shout that can knock a dragon out of the sky?"

She racked her brain, trying to think of anything she had learned that would help, but came up with nothing. Every thu'um that she had learned could be used against dragons but did not kill them. No: she had had to rely on her blade and the strength of her arms for that. "I've nothing," she admitted. "No, I've never heard of anything like that. The Greybeards might know… But they've never mentioned it to me yet."

"You're probably right," Delphine said, and frowned. "I was trying to avoid having to involve them in this, but it seems we have no choice."

"You involved them in this the minute you stole the Horn of Jurgen Windcaller," Sigrid said sharply. "What do you have against the Greybeards?"

"If they had their way, you'd do nothing but sit up on their mountain with them and talk to the sky, or whatever it is they do," Delphine said sarcastically. "The Greybeards are so afraid of power that they won't use it. Think about it. Have they tried to stop the civil war, or done _anything_ about Alduin?"

Sigrid's face flushed red as she tried to hold back her fury. Of course Delphine would have no idea. To her, the thu'um were just words. She had not felt that clawing, alien intelligence at the Word Walls, the fury and rage of the dragons as the souls were absorbed. She had not felt the seductive energy of the Voice, the fear that it would change you, irreparably. Though Sigrid tried to convince herself that Delphine simply did not understand, she began to have the sense that the woman would not have found anything wrong about being changed in such a way, not as long as her goals were furthered. "That's not their—" she started.

But Delphine interrupted her. "No! And they're afraid of you. They're afraid of your power. Trust me, there's no need to be afraid. Think of Tiber Septim. Do you think he'd have founded the Empire if he'd listened to the Greybeards?" In the torchlight the woman's eyes gleamed eagerly, as though if she only said the right words, she would convince Sigrid that she was right. Little did she realize that those very sentences were making her stomach sink rapidly towards the floor. She did not want this responsibility, did not want this power. Tiber Septim? The founding of the Empire? Gods, all she wanted was to go home to Jorrvaskr, a warm bed and a hot meal, and ignore the dragons and wars and everything. She didn't want power. She'd never wanted power. She'd only asked for the freedom to live her life as _she_ chose. The Voice that emerged from her throat in times of trouble whispered, _with that power, you could do _anything _you wanted_, but she quashed it, ruthlessly. To travel down that path was to invite uncomfortable questions she could not answer. It was now not quite so simple an issue of whether she wanted to be a _hero_ or not. It was whether such a thing was even possible, considering. What if she defeated Alduin, but could not defeat herself?

But she said nothing, because there was nothing she could say to make Delphine understand.

"It's only dangerous if you don't know how to use it. All of the great heroes have had to learn to use their power," she insisted, that slightly fanatical gleam returned to her eyes. Sigrid wondered what she thought of her: did she truly believe that the Voice, that the Dragonborn, was just another sword to be wielded? That it was just that easy?

"I don't know if it works like that," she said.

"Whether it does, or it doesn't, that doesn't matter. Listen, girl, the Greybeards can teach you a lot, but don't let them turn you away from your destiny. You're _Dragonborn_, and you're the only one who can stop Alduin. Don't forget it," Delphine said, mouth pressed in a fierce line.

"That, I won't forget," Sigrid said shortly, to hide her discomfort. Suddenly, even the wide room seemed close and the air tight, difficult to breath. "I_ can't_ forget. But I will go and see what Arngeir knows about this Shout."

"Right. Good thing they've already let you into their little cult. Not likely they'd help Esbern or me if _we_ came calling," Delphine said, very bitterly. "While you're gone, we'll look around Sky Haven Temple and see what else the old Blades might have left for us. It's a better hideout than I could have hoped for." And she walked sharply away from the younger woman, following Esbern as he looked at the wall, thrilled beyond measure to see his lore born out in stone, carved at a dawn of time almost beyond his ken.

"Look here, the third panel," he was saying excitedly. "The prophecy which brought the Akaviri to Tamriel in the first place, in search of the Dragonborn. Here are the Akaviri—the Blades—you see their dinstinctive longswords. Now they kneel, their ancient mission fulfilled, as the last Dragonborn contends with Alduin at the end of time. Are you paying attention, Delphine? You might learn something of our own history."

While Sigrid had been intending to ask him more about the prophecy, she stopped short when she took a closer look at the Dragonborn carved on the final panel. At first she had not given the figure much thought: it was armored, almost genderless.

But as she looked at the carved stone face, her blood chilled, for she saw that someone at the very building of the Temple itself, had carefully chiseled a scar into the stone, a claw mark cutting across the nose and lip of the Dragonborn figure.

At that moment, Sigrid knew that whatever her feelings on the matter, she had no choice but to continue fighting, until she or Alduin perished.

She might not believe in destiny, but apparently destiny believed in her.


	22. Answers

**AN**: Hi guys, sorry this chapter has been delayed. I've had to bring work home with me a lot over the last couple of weeks and it's really cut into my time to do "serious" writing. Much easier to write one shots on the morning commute instead. :p And I'm sorry this chapter is both a little short and doesn't have a ton of Vilkas or Vilkas and Sigrid interaction in it—trust me when I say the next one will make up for it! Thanks again to everyone who's left comments, I am so happy y'all are still reading.

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><p><em>Grieve not, Sigrun, the battle is gained,<br>The fighter can shun not his fate._

—The Poetic Edda, from _Helgakviða Hundingsbana II_, translated by Henry Adams Bellows

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><p>It was a tired, filthy woman who finally staggered over the steps of High Hrothgar, muttering to herself as she went. <em>If I ever have my way, the first thing I'm doing is finding some way to install a pulley system up the damn mountain, <em>she thought sourly. The 7,000 Steps never felt any shorter the more times she walked them, and after the first time, she doubted she was the sort of pilgrim who could gain any kind of insight from meditating on the stone carvings that dotted the path. At least there were no frost trolls this journey; even the wolves seemed to have given in. Perhaps she had killed enough of them that they knew to hunt for easier prey. Perhaps even they were tired of the relentless winds and snow that raked the edges of the cliffs.

She helped herself to one of the many regeneration potions that could be found dotting the tables inside of the stone fortress. Though the sour, piney flavor of juniper was overwhelming, as soon as she swallowed, she felt her aching muscles relax; the exhaustion softening her eyelids disappeared. Now she was ready to find her answers, whether they were what she wanted to hear or not. The Greybeards were not to be found in the main chamber, and so she tried one of the side corridors, and there found the old men, each seated in their chairs, heads bowed in meditation. She took a deep breath, and said, "Greetings, Masters."

Arngeir raised his head, slowly, and examined her with a level and inscrutable gaze, his eyes sharpening as he took her measure. "Your training proceeds well, Dragonborn," he greeted her, though how he knew of any of her progress she didn't know; wasn't sure if she wanted to know.

"Thank you," she said, shifting her weight uncomfortably from foot to foot.

"Something tells me, however, that this is not the reason you have come to us today," said Arngeir, voice wry and quiet.

"Yes," she said. "I need to learn the Shout used to defeat Alduin."

Suddenly, the old man was on his feet, a quickness that belied his age. If his eyes had seemed sharp before, they were murderously so now, a fury born of panic and, if she hadn't known better than to think so, fear. "Where did you learn that?" he demanded, his usually serene voice agitated and cracking. "Who have you been talking to?"

"It was recorded on Alduin's Wall," Sigrid said, half-ready to draw her sword in her own defense. Not that it would matter, in the end. The Greybeards had had years to master the power of their _thu'um_; she was a mere neophyte in comparison. And cold steel would do nothing against such ancient magic.

"The Blades! Of course. They specialize in meddling in matters they barely understand," Arngeir said, glowering. "Their reckless arrogance knows no bounds! They have always sought to turn the Dragonborn from the path of Wisdom. Have you learned _nothing_ from us? Would you simply be a tool in the hands of the Blades, to be used for their own purposes?" He practically shook with rage, now, his crooked shoulders hunched forward as he glared.

Sigrid's shoulders tensed; to hear such accusations from the wise man, especially when she had her own suspicions about Delphine's motives, wounded her. "All I want is to defeat Alduin," she said furiously, "That's _all_ I want. Don't you?"

"What I want is irrelevant," he said, coldly. "This Shout was used once before, was it not? And here we are again. Have you considered that Alduin was not meant to be defeated? Those who overthrew him in ancient times only postponed the day of reckoning; they did not stop it. If the world is meant to end, so be it. Let it end and be reborn."

She remembered, what seemed like many years ago, Jarl Balgruuf saying bitterly that the Greybeards had never seemed to notice what went on below the mountain. Was the man really so disconnected from Tamriel that he cared not if it was destroyed, devoured by the World-Eater? "So you won't help me?" Sigrid asked, trying to remain calm, though every urge screamed at her to grab him by his thin chicken neck and shake him until he saw reason. Until he turned away from this academic contemplation of the end of the world and realized that it was _her_ world that would be destroyed. Her icy forests; her warm and welcoming mead hall. Her memories of her father, in woods she hadn't visited in fourteen years; her Companions. _Her_ man.

"No," Arngeir said, oblivious to the struggle that did not reflect upon the scarred lines of her face. "Not now. Not until you return to the path of wisdom."

"Fine," she said, much more steadily than she felt. "Ignore the return. Allow the world to end. You'll all burn too." And with a heavy weight constricting her chest, she turned on her heel to leave.

She had not gone far before the same earthshattering voice that had brought her to her knees in the center of High Hrothgar sounded again. Einarth's Voice was an avalanche, the boulders rumbling down an ancient slope. An avalanche with teeth. "Arngeir!" it whispered hoarsely, and yet the sound, contained within the stone walls and yet not contained at all, resonated until it was all that she could hear, and again, though she knew not the words, she began to gain a sense of their meaning. "Rek los Dovahkiin, Strundu'ul. Rek fen tinvaak Paarthurnax." _…but who was Paarthurnax?_

"Dragonborn! Wait!" Arngeir called after her, all of the fury melted from him, still frightened, and looking very much his age, old and small. "…Forgive me. I was… intemperate. I allowed my emotion to cloud my judgment. Master Einarth reminded me of my duty. The decision whether or not to help you is not mine to make."

"You'll teach me, then?" Sigrid said. She almost did not dare to hope, that he might have changed her mind, that he might have seen reason.

"No. I cannot teach it to you because I do not know it," Arngeir sighed, as he passed a hand tiredly over his eyes. "The Shout of which you speak is called 'Dragonrend,' but its Words of Power are unknown to us. We do not regret this loss. Dragonrend holds no place within the Way of the Voice."

"What's so terrible about Dragonrend?" Sigrid asked, genuinely curious. To her, all of the Words of Power were terrifying. She wondered whether or not the Greybeards felt them the same way that she did, whether they felt the same cruel, terrifying consciousness when they meditated on the Words that she felt when she absorbed a dragon's soul. Somehow, she doubted it. Dragonrend couldn't have been so much worse than smelling a man crisping up to a burnt husk beneath the force of _yol_.

Arngeir sighed, the weight of the years and his knowledge heavy on his shoulders. "Come. Follow me," he murmured, gesturing to her, as he walked slowly through the halls of High Hrothgar towards the courtyard door. As he walked and she followed at a glacial pace, he explained how Dragonrend was created, back at the dawn of time when Skyrim was crushed beneath the dew claws of Alduin and his Dragon Cult. How the ancient Nords had hated the dragons so fiercely and virulently that they came up with this _thu'um_, born of those intense feelings. "As you know, when you learn a new _thu'um_, you take the meaning with you into your very being—in a sense, you _become_ that Word. In order to learn and use Dragonrend, you must take this evil into yourself."

She swallowed, her throat dry. He confirmed what she had suspected, that the Words could change you, if you let them. But she still did not understand how Dragonrend could possibly be any worse than any of the other Words. All of them would eventually clamor around inside of her head. All of them would eventually leave her something more than human. Something more than Sigrid. "But if this Shout is lost, how can I defeat Alduin?" she asked, suddenly understanding Arngeir's exhaustion. He opened the door and she followed him, the cold wind of the courtyard whipping at her face, buffeting her almost to her knees. Thick snowflakes lashed at her, catching in her eyelashes, her hair, on the neck of the fur protruding from beneath her armor. A storm brewed on the mountaintop, and she shivered, wishing she'd dressed more warmly than she had.

Arngeir, on the other hand, seemed unaffected by the cold; clad only in his rough tunic, he walked calmly through the wind as though it could not touch him. "Only Paarthurnax, the master of our order, can answer that question, if he so chooses—to get the answers you seek, you must travel to the top of the mountain and speak to him." He was looking at her again, his eyes taking in her face with a troubled expression that did not abate with his perusal.

"Why haven't I met him before, if that was all it would take?" Sigrid asked, fists clenched at her sides. Tired of games. Tired of secrets. At the turn of every bend, it seemed some complication awaited.

"You weren't ready. You _still_ aren't ready," Arngeir sighed, as the other Greybeards arrayed around him, standing around Sigrid in an eerie circle. "But thanks to the Blades, you have questions that only Paarthurnax can answer. He lives in seclusion on the very peak of the mountain. He speaks to us only rarely, and never to outsiders. Being allowed to see him is a great privilege."

"How do I get to the top of the mountain to see him, then?" Sigrid asked.

"Only those whose Voice is strong may follow the path. We will teach you a shout to clear the way to find Paarthurnax. And then we shall see, Dovahkiin. And then… we shall see."

* * *

><p>Vilkas groaned in frustration and resisted the urge to pound his head against the desk. Now that Skjor was gone and Kodlak spent more and more time cooped up in his room, much of the day-to-day business of running the Companions fell to him. Farkas had never been good with numbers, Aela was functionally illiterate for all of her cunning, and there was no one else in the Circle to do it. And so he spent an uncomfortable amount of time in the halls bent over the account books, dealing with correspondence from those who wished to hire the Companions' services, and parceling out the jobs to members who were home and who he felt were able to handle them. He hated doing it, but if he didn't, everything that he loved would eventually fall to dust. However, that didn't mean that he did it cheerfully. Or that he didn't occasionally think of asking Vignar if he could borrow Brill's services to balance the accounts. After all—he was a warrior, not a bloody clerk.<p>

The accounts were not balancing. _He_ was not balancing. Lately he'd been on edge in more ways than one, and the columns of numbers in his cramped, furious writing were not helping. It was to the point where he almost didn't notice when Farkas strolled into the room, studiously casual. He looked down at Vilkas' scowl and columns and said, "What's the matter, brother? I never thought _you'd_ meet a book you didn't like."

"Very funny, ice-brain," Vilkas muttered, scratching out one of his mistakes. When the twins had been younger, Vilkas had been known for stealing away into secluded corners with Kodlak's books, reading everything and anything he could get his hands on. Although Farkas was too kind-hearted to tease him about it, Arnbjorn had mocked him mercilessly, calling him a swot who'd never make much of himself as a warrior. The sting of the insults had faded over the years, but his childish love of books was still an occasional teasing joke among the long-term residents of Jorrvaskr, Aela especially. "You know that accounts aren't the same as books."

"Courier came for you earlier," his brother said. If Vilkas had been paying attention, he would have noticed that Farkas' tone had taken on that frustratingly level calm that meant he was unhappy about something.

"Oh?" he said, without looking up, squinting at a column of figures he'd been adding and of which he'd lost count. "Drop the letter on the table."

"Would you be surprised to learn that Runil's found a few names for you?"

"He has?" Vilkas said before he realized what he'd said, He swore, and set the quill down on the table, where it leaked a blob of ink onto the parchment.

"When were you going to tell me?" Farkas asked. Only his brother could sound so level-headed at a time of that nature; Farkas wasn't even angry, just disappointed. "You could have asked me, you know. I might not know their names either, but I would have gone with you."

"I know," Vilkas said.

"You could have asked," Farkas repeated.

"So you've already read the letter, then?" Vilkas asked, meeting his brother's eyes.

"None of the names look familiar to me," he said, and tossed the letter to Vilkas, who opened it and skimmed it, quickly. _These are the names of married couples of the Hold who were reported missing in the appropriate time period; unfortunately, I was not able to find any notes regarding children. Snorri and Signy_, _summer of '76,_ he read, _Vigdis and Hakon, winter of '76. Anja and Jesper, spring of '77._ Farkas said, "Only ever knew them as _Ma _and _Da_. And none of those names look familiar." The repeated phrase sounded strangely wistful, and Vilkas realized that even though Farkas had had memories all of those years while he had blocked them out, he knew almost as little about their family or where they came from as Vilkas did, though all of the knowledge was filtered through the perception of a small child.

"Well, if I go back to Falkreath, the next time you'll come too," he said. "See if you recognize anyone I don't."

"Aye." And Farkas smiled, a brief, quick grin. "Now you're talking sense, brother." He clapped Vilkas on the back, perhaps a little harder than he'd needed to, and sauntered from the room.

Vilkas looked back down at his gnarled columns of figures, and scowled. Maybe he would take Aela up on that expedition to Faldar's Tooth.

If he ever finished with these infernal numbers.

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><p>Sigrid turned the Words over on her tongue before she let them well up from her throat for the first time. The Greybeards stood behind her, watching with carefully studied calm as she walked up the steps towards the path to the Throat of the World. The closer she came to the violent winds, the more painful the air felt against her face, as though if she stood still in it too long, the combination of the wind and whipped up gravel and stones would rub the skin straight from her face. She took a deep breath and squinted into the wind, and let the Words slip from her tongue: "<em>Lok vah koor<em>!" As she watched, the rough winds gradually faded away, leaving behind only a brilliant blue sky, hard and bright as a diamond. As always, all that was left behind was the horror and wonder twined together, inextricably, at every use of the Voice.

She could feel the eyes of the Greybeards boring into her back as she started up the path, though she did not turn back to look at them. There could be no turning back, not from this point on. She took another deep breath and began the trudge up the mountaintop, allowing the clear skies to lull her into a false sense of security. The winds, swirling back in suddenly, jolted her back into an unpleasant reality. The words to clear the skies slipped from her lips again. The more she concentrated on them, the more she saw how setting her mouth a certain way, drawing out the _oo_ on _koor_ kept the winds at bay for just a little longer. And again she paused, an uncomfortable twist in her stomach at the ease and the joy of the Words.

Several more times she cleared the skies before her, as she trudged up the mountain, and several times she whirled at the hiss of an ice wraith leaping at her from the clouds. As she cut them down she repeated over and over again, the words that were becoming her mantra: _nothing is ever easy, nothing is ever simple. _Remember that, Sigrid, when directed by the hands of those with plans far beyond your ken. She thought of the wolf blood, dormant now beneath the overwhelming power of the Voice, and scowled. Luckily, the Throat of the World was slightly less than seven thousand steps away from High Hrothgar, and eventually she found herself in a clearing, with what appeared to be a small Word Wall nestled between two larger cairns. She did not see Paarthurnax anywhere on that icy expanse, or anyone else. As far as she could tell, she was alone.

And then she glanced over the edge of the mountain and the breath was knocked from her lungs. If she had thought the view from High Hrothgar was lovely, this was truly something else. Only the sky above her, and only the earth far below, the trees and hills looking like tiny, unreal toys, spread beneath her fingertips. The beauty of the snow-covered mountains and golden plains and lush green forests struck her like the force of a blow. Somewhere below her, in the peaks of Whiterun that she could almost see from this distance, the Companions were going about their business, fighting, eating, drinking toasts to each other. Somehow that thought squeezed her ribs even more so. _Sigrid, you're heading down a dangerous route…_

Suddenly, she was knocked from her musing by the tell-tale sound of beating wings, that heavy force pushing through the air that could only come from the strength of a dragon's wings. She whirled, instinctively pulling her sword from its sheath and the shield from its sling over her back, ready to rush at the monster and destroy its face, absorb its soul.

"_Nid, grohliik_! _Kreh haal_!" the dragon exclaimed, one huge paw lifting as it to ward her off, and it looked her straight in the eye. Its eyes—its eyes were unlike any other dragon's she had ever seen. Oh, they had that same golden, burning fire, but there was something else there: an infinite wisdom and an equally infinite sadness. They were eyes that had seen much. She recognized an echo of her father's occasionally haunted expression in them. Things he had seen that he could not forget.

Shocked, Sigrid skidded to a halt, the sword and shield bobbing lamely in the air. The creature was not attacking her, and there was—something—in him that she had never recognized in any other dragons.

This one watched her, head cocked, as it moved its huge body down the side of the icy slope. "_Drem yol lok_," it rumbled, fixing her with an intent, curious gaze. "Who are you? What brings you to my _strunmah_… mountain?"

"Paarthurnax? I wasn't expecting you to be a dragon," Sigrid said weakly. She did not, could not, sheath her sword just yet. For all that this might be the Greybeards' leader, her past experience had taught her that dragons were murderous creatures bent on one thing: rampant, burning destruction. They were not sad-eyed old creatures with voices that would not sound out of place on a kindly grandfather.

"I am as my father Akatosh made me," said Paarthurnax. "As are you…Dovahkiin." She might have imagined it, but there was a certain wryness to his tone. "Tell me. Why do you come here, _volaan_? Why do you intrude on my meditation?"

Sigrid sheathed her sword, slung the shield back over her shoulder. Whatever he might be, a dragon who spoke so calmly of meditation did not seem likely to attack her. Almost against her will, she inched closer, looking at his gnarled face, the ridges of his scales. If she were to touch the dragon, would his skin burn beneath her hands, even in this snow? Did the same mad fire burn within him that seemed to bubble from Mirmulnir? The hunger of Alduin was certainly lacking. "I need to learn how to defeat Alduin," she said. "I need to learn how to save the fucking world." And she laughed, bitterly. "No one seems to have the answers."

"_Drem_. Patience!" the dragon chastised her, and in that instance she was truly reminded of nothing more than her father, chiding her for letting the arrow fly too quickly, so that it fell short of the target. _Patience, Sigrid. Patience. You'll never learn if you're constantly rushing through the motions, girl!_ "There are formalities which must be observed at the first meeting of two of the dov. By long tradition, the elder speaks first. Hear my _thu'um_! Feel it in your bones. Match it, if you are Dovahkiin!" And with a heavy shift of his massive body, Paarthurnax shuffled himself awkwardly around to face the Word Wall, which Sigrid now saw was empty and blank, though weathered by the rough winds of the mountaintop. _Toor_, Paarthurnax breathed, and with the word a gout of flame, the shining runes appeared as if bubbling up from the stone themselves. "I have spoken!" the dragon rumbled. "The _Rotmulaag_ awaits. A gift, Dovahkiin. Toor. Understand the complexities of Fire as the _dov_ do. Now, show me what you can do. Greet me not as man, but as_ dovah_!"

Sigrid approached the wall, hesitant. This word felt different than those she found in the cold dungeons. Warm and alive. The weight of years. The magic that caught her in warm tendrils was more welcoming than terrifying. Surprised, she glanced sharply at the dragon when she could see again, but she could not tell anything from his face. Instead of questioning, she took a deep breath, as they stared each other down, and drew on the two words of fire. _Yol toor!_

Paarthurnax, to her surprise, basked in it, letting the flames wash over his knobby scales as his eyes closed. "Aaah... yes! _Sossedov los mul_," he rumbled, voice strangely pleased. "The dragonblood runs strong in you. It is long since I had the pleasure of speech with one of my own kind. So you have made your way here, to me. No easy task for a_ joor_…mortal. Even for one of the _Dovah Sos_. Dragonblood. What would you ask of me?" He fixed her with an intent golden eye.

"I…" Sigrid started. She had so many questions that she wanted to ask him, but how to even begin? _Focus_, she told herself. "I need to learn the Dragonrend shout."

"Ah. I have expected you. Prodah. You would not come all this way for tinvaak with an old dovah," Paarthurnax said, sadly. "No. You seek your weapon against Alduin."

"How did you know I came _only _for Dragonrend?"

"_Alduin komeyt tiid_. What else would you seek? Alduin and Dovahkiin return together. But, I do not know the_ thu'um _you seek. _Krosis_. It cannot be known to me. Your kind—_joorre_—mortals—created it as a weapon against the _dov_… the dragons. Our _hahdrimme,_ our minds, cannot even…comprehend its concepts," he murmured. She found, as he talked, that she was able to pick out the meaning of the dragon language, despite the fact that she had not learned the words before. Something about the calming way that he spoke called up almost-memories, of conversations she knew she had never had.

"How can I learn it, then?" Sigrid asked quickly, to hide the disorienting feeling of existing in two times at once.

"_Drem_. All in good time. First, a question for you," Paarthurnax said, with another tilt of his head. She had the sense that he was searching for an answer in her face, the disconcerting impression that he could somehow read her mind. "Why do you want to learn this _thu'um_?"

"It's the only way to defeat Alduin. And I like this world. I don't want it to end," she said. She thought of the forests to which her father had returned. The warm halls of Jorrvaskr. The winding streets of Whiterun. Vilkas in the night, his hands in the dark. She still had so much left to do. Things she needed to say.

"_Pruzah_. As good a reason as any," Paarthurnax said, with a wry laugh. "There are many who feel as you do, although not all. Some would say that all things must end, so that the next can come to pass. Perhaps this world is simply the Egg of the next _kalpa_? _Lein vokiin_? Would you stop the next world from being born?" He stroked one claw delicately through the snow, looking away from her as he did so.

"The next world will have to take care of itself," Sigrid said, with a frown. "And it would be much more reassuring to hear you and Arngeir worrying as much about _it_ as you do the next."

"_Paaz_. A fair answer," Paarthurnax said, with a snort of hot breath through his nostrils. "_Ro fus_… maybe you only balance the forces that work to quicken the end of this world. Even we who ride the currents of Time cannot see past Time's end. _Wuldsetiid los tahrodiis_. Those who try to hasten the end may delay it. Those who work to delay the end may bring it closer." His words took on a meditative, musing tone, as he stared off into the distance. She wondered whether he saw the same things she saw when she looked over the throat of the world, whether he felt so moved by the beauty of Skyrim spread below him. Or whether it was but another shifting landscape in the streams of time. "But you have indulged my weakness for speech long enough. _Krosis_. Now I will answer your question. Do you know why I live here, at the peak of the _Monahven_? What you name Throat of the World?"

"I don't," she replied.

"This is the most sacred mountain in Skyrim. _Zok revak strunmah_. The great mountain of the world. Here the ancient Tongues, the first mortal masters of the Voice, brought Alduin to battle and defeated him," Paarthurnax said, his claws splayed out comfortably before him as he crouched to speak to her.

"Using the Dragonrend shout, right?" she asked, hoping to steer him back to the original topic. Where the Greybeards were stoic and not given much to voluminous words, this dragon was proving to be the exact opposite.

"Yes and no. _Viik nuz ni kroon_. Alduin was not truly defeated, either. If he was, you would not be here today, seeking to… defeat him." That was definitely wry humor in the dragon's words, and she had the bizarre suspicion that he was teasing her. Not the sort of thing one expected from either the leader of a monastery order, or of a dragon. "The Nords of those days used the Dragonrend shout to cripple Alduin. But this was not enough. _Ok mulaag unslaad_. It was the _Kel_—the Elder Scroll. They used it to… cast him adrift on the currents of time."

"Are you saying the ancient Nords sent Alduin forward in time?" Sigrid asked, frowning as she tried to wrap her head around such a strange concept.

"Not intentionally. Some hoped he would be gone forever, forever lost. _Meyye_. I knew better," Paarthurnax said, voice rough as he recalled events that, Sigrid realized with a small shock, he had actually witnessed. She spoke now to a being who had lived since the dawn of time. The knowledge was overwhelming. "_Tiid bo amativ_. Time flows ever-onward. One day he would surface. Which is why I have lived here. For thousands of mortal years I have waited. I knew where he would emerge, but not when."

"How does this help me?" Sigrid said. "Please. I need to learn this Shout. I _need_…"

"_Drem_," Paarthurnax said again, turning a baleful eye upon her, before calming. "_Tiid krent_. Time was… shattered here because of what the ancient Nords did to Alduin. If you brought that _Ke_l, that Elder Scroll back here… to the _Tiid-Ahraan_, the Time-Would… with the Elder Scroll that was used to break time, you may be able to cast yourself back. To the other end of the break. You could learn Dragonrend from those who created it."

"That's _possible_?" she said, sucking in her breath. The prospect was both exciting and terrifying. Of course it was possible. If you'd asked her but a few months earlier whether she could set a man on fire using only her voice, she would have laughed and called you a liar. Of course she could travel back in time and learn Dragonrend from the Ancients. _Of course_, she thought sourly, _Why didn't I think of it before? _But instead, she said, "Do you know where I can find an Elder Scroll?"

"_Krosis,_" Paarthurnax said, his head waving back and forth. "No. I know little of what has passed below in the long years I have lived here. You are likely better informed than I. Trust your instincts, Dovahkiin. Your blood will show you the way."

"Not on these sorts of things, I'm not" Sigrid said, and then squared her shoulders. "Paarthurnax… Now that I'm here… May I ask you something?"

"_Geh_, Dovahkiin," the dragon said. "_Naan_."

"I know that the Greybeards practice the Way of the Voice," Sigrid said, unable to totally articulate her worries, her fears. "But they don't have the _dovah sos_. They've learned the Voice through years of study."

"Yes," Paarthurnax replied, "I have taught them the Way for centuries, and the _thu'um_ since long before that. _Nid. _But that is not, I think, your concern?"

"No," she said, fists curling around fingers, her knuckles white. "Since I've started using the Voice I can feel—things changing inside of me. I'm afraid of this fury that I can feel when I use the Voice. I'm afraid of the knowledge of the dragon souls. I've never been an ambitious woman. I've never wanted power. How do I use the Voice but remain myself?"

"Ahhh," Paarthurnax said, and chuckled, a rumbling laugh, "_Dahmaan_, Dovahkiin. _Suleyk_ may change you, but that is why the Way of the Voice is so necessary, so useful. You must meditate on the _thu'um_. Those urges may be overcome. _Ahkrin! _I have taught the Greybeards for thousands of years, have laid aside the _rahgol_—the rage—that I felt in my youth, when I committed terrible atrocities in the name of Alduin, my brother. _Lost ahkrin_, Dovahkiin. You have a good heart, this I see. You will not travel the dark path unless you choose it." He fixed her with a contemplative eye. "Do you wish to try meditation, now, so that you may see how it should be done?"

"Would it help?" Sigrid asked, almost desperately.

Paarthurnax snorted a huff of air. "It may. Knowing a Word of Power is to take its meaning into yourself—you must _dahmaan_, when you use them. To balance. Contemplate the meaning of a _Rotmulaag_. You will become closer to that Word, as it fills your inner self. Will I teach you, Dovahkiin? What word calls you to deeper understanding? There are three to master: _fus, feim, _and_ yol_.

She thought of it, of the fierce joy that the flames called from her heart, and shuddered. She did not wish to understand _yol_ more than she already did. "Fus," she replied.

"It is called Force in your tongue," Paarthurnax murmured, pleased to be talking. To _tinvaak_, she thought with a small smirk. "But as you push the world, so does the world push back. This of the way force may be applied effortlessly. Imagine but a whisper pushing aside all in its path. That is _fus. _ Let its meaning fill you. _Su'um ahrk morah_. You will push the world harder than it pushes back."

Sigrid rolled the word over in her mind, the meaning. Push the world harder than it pushes back—a decent philosophy of life, no matter what. She closed her eyes and sighed, feeling this new understanding and appreciation of the Word pulsing through her. When she looked up again, she saw that Paarthurnax was still watching her intently. "I'm still… afraid," she said, though it hurt to admit it. To admit fear or weakness. To a dragon, no less, no matter how intelligent his eyes. No matter how his tone reminded her of her father.

"_Heyv, _and _ahkrin_," Paarthurnax replied as he ducked his head away from her again. "Go now, Dovahkiin. Find the _Kel_ and return to me. And we will see about Dragonrend."

She spoke with the Greybeards again before leaving, and Arngeir's eyes shone as she related some of the conversation with Paarthurnax. _The Dragonblood burns bright within you_, he'd said, and when she asked about the Elder Scroll he told her that she must go to Winterhold. A shudder crossed her shoulders as she remembered, so clearly, the ruined town that had slipped into the sea. Her home. _No_, she thought, _I'm not ready to return_. Instead, she'd hastily changed the subject and asked Arngeir about the ambition of the dovah, of the temptation of giving in to fury.

He looked at her in surprise, as though the answer was obvious. "Your destiny requires you to use your Voice," he said. "Why else would Akatosh have bestowed this blessing upon you? If you remember to use your voice in service to that purpose, you will remain true to the way…"

Destiny. Heart. Courage. All of the advice sounded so lovely, but in practice…

She'd seen how much those words were worth.

* * *

><p>When she returned to Jorrvaskr, Farkas greeted her in the mead hall. "Hello, shield-sister," he said pleasantly, "Good to see you're back."<p>

"Yes," she replied, "It's good to be back." And she was not surprised to find that it was not an exaggeration. Just returning to the now-familiar hall eased some of her persistent fears. Here, at least, she knew exactly who she was.

"My brother's not yet returned from Riften with Aela," Farkas said, and she couldn't tell whether his tone was sly or merely his normal bland friendliness. "He should be back tonight, though, if you need to speak with him."

"Why would I need to speak with him?" Sigrid demanded.

"Hmm," he said, and grinned at her. "You know, shield-sibling, for two smart people you're _remarkably_ stupid sometimes." And he clapped her on the back as he swaggered out towards the living quarters, hard enough to rock her forward.

She spent the rest of the afternoon bathing, a long soak in the tub to wash away the weariness in her muscles, and packing together the things she would need for the journey to Winterhold and wherever the search for the _Kel_ took her next. She spent the last hours of daylight on the porch, watching the sun set and mentally attempting to prepare herself to return home. _Home_. What had been home.

Even when Vilkas returned, she gave him a bit of a wide berth, not wanting to withstand the scrutiny of Aela's curious eyes as she observed the intense look that passed between them. Waited, as he too washed and rested, ate. Returned to his corners. When she ascertained that no one was there to talk to him, she slipped through the doorway, shutting it behind her. He looked up sharply, his eyes meeting hers, wordless and intense, waiting—for what?

"I'm going to Winterhold," she said. "I don't know when I'll be back."

He did not respond, merely watched her even more sharply, pale eyes narrowed, mouth pressed in a thin line. She could feel the tension in him, the need to say something but the inability to find the proper words.

And she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders and said, "I'd like you to come with me."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> Next up: roadtrip!


	23. Books

**AN: **Again, I'm taking a few liberties with the size/scope of Skyrim—it does seem rather small in the game sometimes. And just for the sake of the story, Winterhold needs a few scrubby taiga-type woods. :p Also, as a side note, this is probably one of my favorite chapters that I've written so far for this story—it was certainly the easiest and most enjoyable to write, so I hope you all enjoy it too. :)

* * *

><p><em>I was young once, I traveled alone,<br>then I found myself going astray;  
>rich I thought myself when I met someone else,<br>for man is the joy of man._

—The Poetic Edda, from Hávamál, translated by Carolyne Larrington

* * *

><p>At first he was unsure whether he had heard her properly. The woman stood there in the doorway, her arms folded across her chest as though she were about to have to enter into an argument with him, eyes fiercely determined and that broad, full-lipped mouth set in a stubborn frown. Bold as brass, as always. "You want <em>me<em>," he said, slowly, turning the words over on his tongue, "To travel with _you_."

"Yes," she said, taking a deep breath as though she'd expected this. Expected resistance. The fierce eyes met him, prepared for a fight. "Look, you're always going on about shield-siblings watching each others' backs and I've got to find a bloody Elder Scroll now, and I thought that—"

He stood from the chair and crossed the room, slowly, closing the distance between them until they were as close as a breath, her elbows, still crossed over her chest, digging into his unarmored ribs. "Is that the only reason?" he asked, unable to keep the mocking grin from his face, head tilted until his lips murmured the words into her ear. "You're not still jealous, are you? This isn't a ploy to keep me from Ysolda's bed?" Not that he'd visited it since the fare-well Sigrid had witnessed, but if the woman was determined to bedevil him at every turn, well, turnabout was only fair.

"Of course it's the only bloody reason," she blustered as she pulled away, eyes narrowed and a flush of red staining her cheeks, "And it's an eminently suitable reason, you've said yourself that—"

"Yes," he said, interrupting her.

"What?" she said, startled out of the fury she'd been about to work herself into.

"Yes," he repeated.

"You'll come with me?" she said, almost as though she didn't quite believe it.

"Yes," he said, dryly, for the third time. And then she smiled at him, a sudden twitch of her lips, a bright gleam that reached her eyes and stayed there. Her pale gray, surprisingly long-lashed eyes, crinkled at the edges, their pupils dilated. Something in his chest constricted, a wrench between his ribs. For a moment it was possible to forget the rest of her plain face: the scars cutting across her mouth and nose and down the side of her cheek, the hawk-like nose that had been broken more times than she could probably count, the fact that all of her features seemed just slightly too large for her face. When she smiled at him like that, it wasn't just _possible_ to forget her plainness. It was easy. He looked away, suddenly discomfited. "Get some sleep, woman. We'll leave in the morning, I assume?"

"Yes," she said, and looked away, too, realizing what she had done. Just as quickly as she'd slipped into his quarters, she fled, leaving him behind, as off balance as ever.

He told himself that he was relieved she had asked him because it showed that she was finally feeling like a true member of the Companions, one who would rely on a shield-sibling before rushing into the unknown, especially for something of this magnitude. Especially for what was most likely _Dovahkiin _business. Before she could become another Skjor, dying alone in the bowels of some forsaken fort. But another, less conscious part of his brain knew this was at best a half-truth and that at some point since Sigrid had sauntered into Jorrvaskr and demanded a place amongst their ranks, he had gotten extremely good at lying to himself.

He rose early the next day, for a journey of such indeterminate length required a number of preparations to be made. First he arranged matters with Vignar and Brill so that if any pressing financial matters arose in his absence, they would be taken care of. He didn't quite trust that they would do it properly, but it was the only option. He made Farkas promise to take over the doling out of any jobs as they rolled in; though his brother could be a little slow at times, he knew his shield-siblings as well as any of the Companions and would make the correct decisions regarding the level of difficulty. He made Aela promise that she would not take the fight to the Silver Hand in his absence, not after they had recovered the latest set of plans from Faldar's Tooth. Judging from the documents they'd snatched from the dead bandit leader's chest, the Hand were cautious now, though not yet in retreat, and he did not want to risk any trouble while the Companions' numbers were diminished. And then, finally, he went to see the Harbinger.

Kodlak looked up as he entered, surrounded by his notes and plans, and nodded. "Aye, Vilkas."

"How goes your search, Harbinger?" Vilkas asked.

To his surprise, Kodlak seemed hopeful, almost optimistic. A faint smile crossed his lips. "Well, boy. Well. I've nearly cracked it. I think the answer cannot be far now. And perhaps the cure itself." His gaze sharpened as he took Vilkas' measure. "You are on edge."

There were hundreds of things that Vilkas should have told Kodlak: the blessing he had received from Hircine, that night beneath the moonlight when he'd spared Sinding's life; the ongoing war against the Silver Hand; his tentative attempts to reclaim his history; the nights spent grappling in bed with a woman who he didn't understand in the least and who he had the sneaking suspicion had fate's unpleasant attention upon her. Inwardly, he sighed: was it worth it to trouble the old man, burden him further? No. Instead, he lied, and easily, for apparently that new ability didn't apply only to himself. He wondered if Kodlak could smell it on him, the metallic tang of falsehood like sour sweat. "Harbinger, I expect to be gone for several days, if not weeks. I've already made the proper arrangements so that Jorrvaskr will continue running smoothly…" Instantly, he cursed himself. It did not do to remind Kodlak of the disarray into which he'd allowed the mead-hall to fall.

The Harbinger grunted, and looked down, the previous cheer evaporated. He knew it, too—the exhaustion lining his eyes spoke of it. "Where are you off to this time, boy?" he said gruffly, trying to inject some humor into the situation.

And Vilkas was glad to provide him the distraction, to distract himself from the sad state of his mentor. He kept coming down to the Harbinger's quarters when most of the other members of the Companions avoided it, both out of respect for the old man's shame, as well as their own discomfort. "Winterhold," he said. "Sigrid's hunting for an Elder Scroll, apparently."

To his surprise, Kodlak laughed suddenly, heartily, almost until the tears came, before the laughter was swallowed in a racking cough. "What did I tell you, all those weeks ago?"

"I don't remember," Vilkas replied, mystified.

"When you were grousing about how that woman couldn't be trusted," Kodlak said smugly, "I told you, she only needed a reason to stay."

Vilkas didn't have an answer for that, of course, and so he coughed, too, though his was short and polite, and changed the subject. "If you have no other concerns, Harbinger, then I shall take my leave."

"Go, go," Kodlak said, waving him off. "Come back in one piece. We're close, Vilkas, I can taste it. Sovngarde is in our grasp again."

Sigrid waited for him outside of the mead hall, a carefully curated pack on her back as she looked out at the city spread below her, fully armored, every last well-worn piece of it polished to a shine, the Skyforge steel at her hip sheathed in a carefully oiled and rubbed scabbard. At the sound of his footsteps, she turned to catch his eye, a brief smile twitching at the corner of her mouth. "Good," she said dryly, "I wasn't sure if you were going to change your mind after all the time you were taking in there. Gods forbid we were on any kind of schedule!"

"Unlike you," Vilkas replied, "I have actual _responsibilities _that required attention before running off into the wilderness_._"

She laughed again as she gestured for him to follow. "Oh, I have responsibilities. Finding an Elder Scroll. Averting the apocalypse. Just the very small things, you know, nothing like managing the _accounts_."

Really, she was the most infuriatingly insolent woman. "One of these days," he growled, "I'm going to turn you over my knee."

"Hmmm," Sigrid said, and threw a sideways glance in his direction, one eyebrow cocked and a speculative gleam in her eyes.

And it was then that he realized this would be a very long journey indeed.

* * *

><p>They set out together that morning, before the sun had risen too high in the sky, and she found herself with mixed feelings about the journey. The prospect of having a traveling companion, even one so occasionally infuriating as Vilkas, lightened her heart. Someone to talk to through the long trudge, someone to share her bed at night, someone to warm her in the chill of the woods. Someone to take away the sting of seeing the scrubby pine wood forests she had avoided for so many years. Instinctively she knew that out of anyone who could accompany her, he would be the one to truly understand her ambivalence, her fear of facing her past in its cold, icy reality. She wondered whether Birna had taken over her parents' trading post, whether the Frozen Hearth would look as bustling and worldly as she remembered it as a child on those few brief trading trips into "town." No one would recognize her, not since she'd cut off the waist-length braid that had been her hallmark as a child. Not since she was clad in armor instead of ragged fur clothing her father had sewn himself. Not since she'd covered herself in the tattoos marking her throat, her hands. Sigrid shook herself out of the reverie. No use agonizing over it now. She'd worry about these things, about old acquaintances, when she got there.<p>

They walked in silence at first, up the road out of Whiterun, small snowflakes drifting down from the sky, barely sticking to the ground before melting again into nothingness. As she walked, Sigrid thought of their first journey together, the argument outside of Korvanjund where she'd insulted his manhood and he'd insulted her honor, and the first night she'd slept beside him, and she almost laughed. How different things had become. The silence now was companionable rather than tension-filled, only the sound of their feet on the earth and the faint rumble of a giant's footsteps in the distance.

Eventually, he said, "An Elder Scroll, eh?"

"Aye," Sigrid replied. "It sounds mad, doesn't it?"

"No madder than any of the other messes you've dragged me into," he said, with a sardonic snort. "I've come to appreciate the insanity, in a way."

"Only in a way?"

"A man can only take so much madness."

"Poor little baby!" she exclaimed, with a laugh, which trailed off when he fixed her with that intent look that she could never quite figure: did he want to shake her, or kiss her? And she admitted then, to herself, that both options did not necessarily seem unappealing, and promptly switched the subject away from any teasing, mostly to cover her own sudden discomfort. She explained briefly of Paarthurnax and what he had told her of the ancient Nords' battle against Alduin, leading to the World-Eater being ripped from time and thrown ahead to the present day.

As she spoke, he watched her carefully, almost expressionless, a small frown knitting the skin between his brows. "You joked of madness earlier, but you know that reading an Elder Scroll can _drive _you mad? At the very least strike you blind. You're willing to take that risk? I'm not sure if _I'm_ willing to let you take that risk, on such a flimsy plan."

She exhaled. "I've been trying to worry about these things as they come. Who's to say we'll even find the damn thing, after all?" she said lightly.

"Even worse," he muttered.

"Well, you are just a bloody barrel of optimism today," she said. "I'm _so_ glad I brought you along."

"You are glad, though," he said with a wicked grin, "You can keep an eye on me. No need to worry about other women in—" and cut off abruptly as she swung around to punch him in the arm, catching her fist in his fingers, meeting her gaze with one raised eyebrow before he released her.

"That bloody mead," she muttered, quickening her pace to overtake him, "Gods, do I regret letting _that_ slip. If only I'd known how much _more_ it would swell your head…" The snow was falling more heavily now, sticking in her hair and to her eyelashes, and she blinked it away; licked it from her lips.

He caught up with her, a frown on his face now. "What do you mean, how much _more_?"

"You're an arrogant skeever-shit," Sigrid replied, though there was no venom in her words, merely stating a fact. "All of that boasting? The way you treated me when I first joined? You're really surprised?"

"I'm not arrogant," he said sharply.

"No?"

"It's not arrogance if it's a fact," he said, shrugging. "I'm good at what I do. Better than most other people. Why bother hiding it? And when you showed up, before I knew you… well. Why bother accepting less than the best?"

Of course he would say such a thing, she marveled, with such a serious look on his face. As though it made perfect and absolute sense. "You truly are a damned insufferable man," she said, staring at him.

"And you're a bloody insufferable woman," he retorted.

"We're well-matched, then," she said cheerfully.

"You really think me arrogant?" he asked, after they'd walked in silence for several long miles, the snow collecting on the wolf pelt of his armor, in her hair. In the distance they could see the ruins of Korvanjund jutting dark and foreboding from the white that blanketed the ground.

"Oh, Vilkas," she said wryly, "Of course I do. You _are _arrogant. Just as you thought me an unprincipled thug for however many months."

"You are an unprincipled thug."

"You see?"

* * *

><p>Surprisingly, they made the first leg of the journey without much by way of interruption. A few wolves, here or there, almost nothing worth mentioning. He sighed as Sigrid kicked one of the wolves in the throat before stabbing her sword downward through its skull. The closer they came to the mountains that ringed this part of the country away from the ruins of the old city, the more tense she became, and he had the sense that she would almost have welcomed a fight, or a dragon. He had learned by now that her way of dealing with emotions was to fight something. Anything. And if they were to be on the road together then he would rather it not be him.<p>

As the sun began to set, the snow rapidly transformed into a blizzard, the sort of intense storm that blew across the Pale with ferocity, dumped a mountain of snow down on the unsuspecting populace, and just as quickly blew out again. They struggled against the wind, looking for appropriate shelter. A cave, perhaps, under which they could set up the bedrolls. Risky in such a storm, one never knew how the snow would build up. An unwary traveller could easily find himself frozen cold and still beneath a drift that had not been there but hours before. It was with an intense sense of relief that he sighted the peak of a building's roof in the distance. "Over there!" he yelled, over the howl of the wind. "I think it's an inn."

"Thank Talos," Sigrid grumbled, before her eyes lit up, and she took a deep breath and intoned, "_Lok vah koor!"_

To his amazement, the skies cleared a path before them, the snow melting away as if by magic. Though the blizzard howled on either side of them still, they were now able to walk the remaining feet to the inn without the winds tossing them to and fro.

"Holy hell, woman, why didn't you do this _before_?" Vilkas demanded.

"I forgot I could do it," she said sheepishly. "This one's new."

The Nightgate Inn was one of those places out of the way but that a lucky traveler stumbled upon in a snowstorm, a place to weather out the night in a land devoid of shelter beyond a few bare trees and snow-swept rocks. And it would only be a welcome sight under such conditions, for the inn itself was run down and dingy, with equally dingy rooms for ten septims a night and one lone, scowling drunk slumped in the corner, watching them enter with ale-bright eyes. He paid the grim-looking innkeeper, a man who looked as though for all he was a publican, he was used to solitude and quiet, and sat down to share a meal with Sigrid. The food too was uninspired: venison broiled to leathery tastelessness, and potatoes seasoned heavily with salt. That, at least, made sense: he was already buying mugs of ale for them to make up for the thirst.

They did not drink long, for even the ale was sour and stale, and when they retired to the rented room, he was not drunk. Just tired, and feeling strangely contemplative as he locked the door behind them and began to unbuckle his armor and remove the wet clothing. She lounged against the wall opposite, watching him with a lazy, insouciant expression that he met with a smirk, moving at a mockingly slow pace as he peeled off the shirt, and then the pants. Then his smallclothes. Still she watched him, appreciatively, her eyes starting at his face and traveling over the broad, muscular chest, the trail of hair down, lower… and lower… where they rested, then flicked up, abruptly, to find him laughing at her. She grinned in reply. "What? A woman can't enjoy a good show?"

"Far be it from me to deny you anything, milady," he said sardonically, sitting down on the bed as she undressed, quickly, efficiently. He couldn't mock her for doing exactly what he enjoyed most: watching the ripple of the muscle beneath her rough, scarred skin; the shift of the inked designs under the dim light. Admiring the deadly weapon of her body in such a vulnerable state, bared before him, before she slid into the bed too, and they were both shivering beneath the blankets. This time when they fucked, it was slow, almost lazy. Familiar in a strange way, without the influence of alcohol or the moon or traumas or anything but a desire to move together in the narrow bed, in the darkened room. Only skin against skin. As she straddled him, leaning down to catch the edge of his neck with her lips and teeth, he whispered a torrent of filthy, purposely outrageous things in her ear, until she was laughing when she came, choking out his name between snickers. Afterward, as she drifted off to sleep in his arms, eyes slipping shut, an unpleasant thought lurched into his head and would not leave again. It would have festered there all night if he said nothing. And so he opened his damn fool mouth.

"Sigrid," he said, and she opened one eye and pulled herself away to frown at him.

"What?" she asked, her voice sleepy and contented.

"Do I need to be worried about a child? Should we have been taking—precautions?"

"Oh, no. After all of these years and however many men, no lover of mine has ever gotten me with child. At this point, I'm fairly sure I'm barren. You've nothing to fear on that count," the woman said, dryly as all that. And burrowed right back into his chest as casually as though she'd told him that the room was too cold and she wanted another blanket.

Irrationally, the words _years_ and _however many_ warmed his blood in an unpleasant way. For all that he'd enjoyed needling her for her apparent jealousy of Ysolda, the sudden and possessive frustration took hold of him with grasping, furious fingers, thinking of faceless men who might have held her this way, who might have touched the same places he sought in the dark. Thinking of how they might have seen the way her plain face transformed in moments of passion into something beautiful and secret and wild, something only _he _saw. Whatever was between them remained unspoken and ineffable, but he had begun, at unnamable some point, to think of her as _his_, and he couldn't tell whether that territorial fury belonged to the man or the wolf. "How _many_ men have you fucked?"

"I don't know. I've never kept a tally sheet, Vilkas. Does it matter?" Sigrid asked, with a yawn, her eyes slipping shut again. "And besides—I'm with you now."

"Yes," he said, wondering at the simple, bare truth of it. There it was. "I suppose you are."

"Now stop being a bloody idiot and go to sleep. We've a long day ahead of us tomorrow, I imagine." And like that, she was out: not for the first time, he envied her ability to sleep anywhere, in any conditions, at any time.

It was longer coming, for him.

In the morning, he woke as she began to open her eyes, shifting in the bed with a yawn. In the night, she'd pushed him up against the wall so that most of the bed was taken up with her sprawling limbs. She'd also stolen all of the blankets, leaving him exposed to the chilly room. He snorted. Bloody typical.

"Ysmir, I hope the snow's cleared up," she muttered, rubbing her eyes with the back of her fists, "Or we're going to have a damned time of it getting over the mountains."

"Good morning to you, too," he drawled, pushing her away so that he too could stretch out legs that had been overrun with tingling pins and needles from the uncomfortable position she'd forced him into.

Luckily, for the sake of the journey, the snow had cleared. Attempting to cross the mountains this far north in the winter could be a risky business, with not only snowstorms appearing out of nowhere, but with the buildup of snow and ice obscuring the paths carved through the stone by years of travelers' feet. As they left, however, there were only clear blue skies, so bright and brilliant that the snow reflected back a blinding white light into their eyes whenever they looked down. Squinting, the two Companions set off again, with Sigrid unusually silent and pensive as they began the gradual trek up the mountainside, her mouth set in a tight line as they stepped carefully up the icy slopes.

He looked sideways at her, but said nothing. She would tell him in her own time, if ever. For now, he concentrated on finding a safe route through the worst of the mountains, suspiciously eying the ruin of a Dwemer lift as they walked by it. Some in Skyrim thought the snow elves a myth, long destroyed and vanished from the earth, but several years ago Vilkas and Farkas had discovered that they were not only very much alive, but incredibly dangerous. Shimmermist Cave had been an unpleasant surprise, to be sure. He could remember, clear as day, the blind white elves, crouched unnaturally, rushing at them from the dark. The eerie chittering of the chaurus. When Vilkas had pestered Kodlak for answers—why had the Falmer not been sighted before?—the Harbinger had frowned, and said, _I think they can sense change on the horizon. Something's driving them up from the safety of the depths_. Vilkas snorted, now, as they skirted the ruins. He could almost imagine the stench of them wafting from the stubby tower, a smell he could never forget. If even those homicidal monsters could sense the change in the air… well, it was no wonder he himself had gotten caught up in this whirlwind of legend.

After long moments of watching her grim face when she thought he wasn't looking, he decided he had figured out the reason for her sudden silence, and took a chance. "You said you hadn't truly been back to Winterhold since your father died," he said. "Where in the hold did you live?"

She sighed, long and slow, more a hiss than anything, and he knew he'd hit upon it. She looked ahead, into the distance as though picturing it all clearly. "To the north," she said, "Past the mountains, and a bit to the west, in the balsam fir woods. But a day's walk from the city itself, though we rarely went down to town. Da didn't like it much. Didn't like to be around _people_ much."

"Winterhold is a bit… depressing," Vilkas agreed, remembering the sad ruins of a once-proud city, a Jarl presiding over a court of his own wife and son, and watching a group of mages with an almost virulent suspicion. Korir blamed the College for Winterhold's collapse, and it was a cruel sort of irony that had him ruling over the crumbled remnants of a city that was now mostly mages.

"And it was only getting worse, every time we went back," Sigrid said, a faraway look in her eye. "More and more people would be gone, headed out to make their fortunes elsewhere."

Vilkas remembered his own upbringing in Jorrvaskr, which despite the tragedy of his early life and despite the rage and fear that had always simmered below his skin, had been a fairly happy one. He had never been lonely, that was certain. And they'd been lucky, in those days. No one had died. Not like recent years, with diminished numbers and a slowly-dying Harbinger. "That must have been difficult."

"No," she said, and shook her head. "It might sound strange, but I was never _unhappy_. Never regretted it. There was always so much to do just to keep ourselves fed and warm and dry that I was too busy to think that perhaps we might have been dirt fucking poor, in the middle of nowhere, where the 'big city' would barely even qualify as a village down south." Another frown, a long pause as they moved together up the mountain. He didn't interrupt her, waited for her to continue. "It's just… Going back is going to be strange. I never _properly_ mourned him. I suppose I never really had the time. Always felt that if I stopped moving, if I stopped to think about it too much, that I'd never get back up to my feet again."

Vilkas exhaled. He knew that feeling all to well, these days. The curious constriction in his chest again, thinking of her as a girl, facing that same emotion. "I never asked how your father died," he said, instead.

She sighed, as they walked up that steep, narrow path, single-file due to the size of it, Sigrid taking the lead. "I was but fourteen winters," she said, a curiously distant voice, as though it had happened to someone else. "I'd gone out to bring back an elk for our supper. His leg had been bothering him that month, you see, and walking was difficult…" She trailed off and the only sound to break the silence was the whistling of the wind and the crunch of their feet in the snow. "By the time I got back to our home, he was almost gone. Bandits had come through our clearing while I'd been out. I was too late to fight for him."

The coldness in her voice told him that on some level, she had always blamed herself. For not being there; for not having been just a little faster. He knew the feeling: they both did, and not just with regard to parents lost. To comrades, over the years. They were never logical feelings: you could only do what you could do on the field of battle. The terrible luck that governed who lived and who died was capricious and cruel; a second's movement in one direction could save your life, or end it. A man could do nothing to change it. But he knew from experience, too, that knowing this made it no easier to accept, in the end. No matter how a warrior might smile or laugh in the mead hall, the shades of his dead comrades and friends stretched behind him in the shadows, and behind every song of valor and a glorious death was the question: _what if_.

He realized, too, it was the most she had spoken of her past voluntarily, without further coaxing. _Say something, damn it, _Vilkas thought. "If you'd returned in time, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation now," he said.

"I know," Sigrid replied, with a wry smile. "Trust me, I've thought that many times over the years. When I first found him I wanted nothing but to follow him to Sovngarde." She exhaled, roughly. "But life has its own attractions after all. I've never been eager to die."

"Well, that's good to know," he said dryly, thinking of all of the times when she'd rushed recklessly into battle, into situations he was sure would have killed her, that mad battle light in her eyes. "I can make a short list of times you would've gods-damned fooled _me_."

She smirked at him and said, "For all of that, I want to live, Vilkas. That's why I'm going to the bloody College for this Scroll. I'm not ready to die. I'm not ready to just let the world end."

He nodded. He was not ready for it to end, either: and with that, he realized that whatever his concerns about the beast-blood, about his future, about Kodlak, about Hircine, all were secondary problems, things he could manage. As long as they could get through this damn business with the dragons. Somehow, this was heartening. He'd always done better when he could focus on eliminating one threat at a time. They were coming through the mountains now, walking carefully down the path that now sloped the other way down, treacherous beneath their feet. In the distance, he could see a dark figure moving towards them.

It turned out to be a hooded Khajiit, trudging through the snow up the mountains. "Much snow in Skyrim. Enough snow. M'aiq does not want it anymore," he muttered to himself, before finally noticing the two Companions, both of whom now eyed him curiously. "Greetings, travellers," he said with an ingratiating smile that showed his pointed incisors, "Perchance, have you any calipers? M'aiq is always in search of calipers, yet he finds none. Where could they have gone?"

"No calipers," Sigrid said, and looked, mystified, at Vilkas.

He merely shook his head. How to decipher the ramblings of a likely skooma-mad cat? "Think you're headed in the wrong direction, cat," he said. "The city of Winterhold is the other way. Perhaps you'd find calipers there."

The Khajiit turned his full attention on Vilkas, who had the disconcerting feeling that M'aiq's eyes could see right through him, to some realm beyond his imagination. "The city of Winterhold. Yes, perhaps. Perhaps. But tell M'aiq this, traveler: how does anyone know there was a city of Winterhold? M'aiq did not see it with his eyes. Did you?" He looked at Sigrid, then Vilkas, in turn. "Did you?"

"The remnants of it," she said. "It exists. It is there."

"Remnants," M'aiq murmured, before looking back to Vilkas and extending one claw gently towards the scruffy day-old beard that was beginning to grow on his face, before Vilkas slapped the paw away with a glare and a helpless look at Sigrid, who was choking back laughter, her eyes crinkled almost shut. M'aiq said sadly, now, "Nords are so serious about beards. So many beards. M'aiq thinks they wish they had glorious manes like Khajiit. But M'aiq is tired now. He is done talking."

And he trudged off again, no doubt in search of calipers, and Vilkas was left with Sigrid, who had given into full-blown guffaws. Vilkas stared after him, bemused, before he shook his head. "Let's keep moving. We should be able to reach the city before noon."

* * *

><p>Sigrid had been glad for the distraction that the ridiculous Khajiit provided. She had never spoken of what had happened to her father to anyone before. It seemed right to tell him, but it had left her with feelings that were not easily cured. The surreal encounter, however, had injected a humor into the morning that enabled her to ignore her confession. For now, anyway. She knew that before they left Winterhold proper, she would have to make the pilgrimage to her father's scattered grave. She would have to make her peace.<p>

They skirted around excavations at Saarthal, Sigrid frowning. "This is new," she said.

"Aye," Vilkas replied, "They hadn't even begun the last time I was here…a winter? Two winters ago? Bloody mages can't leave anything be."

Sigrid smirked at him and whispered, "You'd best keep your voice down, you never know when a mage is going to take offense. And there's an _awful_ lot of them down there."

"I could take them," Vilkas said confidently.

"Arrogant skeever-shit," she said, almost fondly, as she eyed the ruins. The mages had built up scaffolding around the entrance to the depths, wooden steps leading up and down the entrance nestled in the side of the mountain. Men and women scurried busily around it, the size of ants in the distance. The strange anxiety pooled in her stomach again. If they passed Saarthal now, Winterhold itself was not far. Under an hour's quick walk. And a quick walk to the west…would take her to the forests of her youth. She would have to make her peace, but just at this moment, she found that she was not totally ready to do it. _Find the location of the Elder Scroll first_, she told herself, _and then worry about going home_.

Vilkas let her take the lead as they walked up the road into Winterhold. She could feel his eyes on her, trying to gauge her reaction. Whatever she felt, she could not show weakness in front of him. Not now. Strange, how before she had wanted to prove him wrong before, but now she merely did not want him to think her weak. To think her so emotional that she could not soldier through like he had done. But oh, it was strange. To walk this road she had walked so many times, years ago, with another man by her side. A path her father had ceased to walk fourteen winters ago.

It looked exactly the same as she remembered it, except that a fire had gutted Tove's house, and it now stood in ruins, burnt almost down to the foundations. Everything else was exactly as she remembered it. The Jarl's longhouse was still the grandest structure in town but for the college, its thatched roof rising above any other building in the remnants of the city. The general store was still there, she saw with a sudden pain in her chest. She remembered the times she and her father had trudged down from the mountains to trade their skins. _Now Arnskar's a cheat_, he'd said to her, _better to talk to his wife, Imsin, or their daughter Birna, you'll get a fairer price from the women than from him. If neither of them are available, don't accept _anything _less than what they're worth. City folk'll separate you from your coin quicker than a wounded wolf will turn on you._ She could see the spires of the College in the distance, across the bridge she had never crossed before.

Sigrid realized she'd stopped walking, and that Vilkas had as well. "Aye, Sigrid?" he asked, though she knew what he meant was _are you all right_.

"Just strange to be back," she said, looking around her again at the spare set of buildings. "I remember it being a lot—bigger—Ysmir. Birna?" Sigrid's eyes widened as she caught sight of her old acquaintance.

Time had not been kind to her. When she'd left Winterhold, they'd both been in their teens—Birna had been a few winters older than Sigrid, but they'd been cordial when they saw each other. She remembered how Birna had politely poured her a cup of tea with goat's milk and a dash of precious sugar and pretended they were having a court soiree, while their fathers bickered over the price of the bear pelts. Despite the fact that Sigrid was a barbarian straight from the woods, and Birna was a soft town girl. But time and the harsh northern air and financial hardship had thinned her face, always hard and flat, into something truly harsh. She looked hewn from stone, her collarbone jutting out sharply from her chest. "Yes?" Birna said, looking over at them in confusion. She obviously did not recognize either Companion.

She stood awkwardly, for a moment, unsure whether she should say something. Was she ready to confront her past? Did she really want to remind these people that she was not dead after all? She had spent so many years running from this ruined city, these fir and hemlock forests, of building her identity beyond Sigrid Frostborn, beyond Sigrid of Winterhold, that to reclaim it now felt almost painful. Like adopting a life that wasn't hers. Vilkas was watching her with an expressionlessly bland face, and she made her decision then. "It's Sigrid," she said, her voice sounding strange in her own ears. "Sigrid Frostborn?"

Birna's face changed, instantly. Her mouth dropped open as she took the warriors in again, before her attention fixed on Sigrid. Taking in the close-cropped hair, the scars, the tattooed neck and hands. "Sigrid?" she gasped, as though quite unable to believe it. "I—after your father disappeared, I'd thought you'd both died. Good Gods, look at you! Your hair! Your face—you look quite—quite wild. Where have you _been_?"

"Da's gone," she said, and the words emerged without pain, much to her surprise. "And I've been, well, all over." They spent a few moments catching up: Sigrid discovered to her dismay that Birna's brother Ranmir was as much of a useless dreamer as ever, drinking away all the profits of the store and mooning over his lost love, Isabelle. Birna struggled to make ends meet: in the years that Sigrid had been gone, more and more of the citizens had left Winterhold, leaving only the court, a few drunkards in the Frozen Hearth along with the rogue mages, and the College. It was a grim picture, and Sigrid felt a stab of both guilt and relief that she had escaped such a fate, rotting away in the wild backwaters of Skyrim.

"But enough about me," Birna said, and then glanced slyly from Sigrid to Vilkas, who'd been waiting only a little impatiently as the women talked, and back. "Who's _this_?"

"Vilkas of the Companions, at your service," Vilkas said, throwing a bow as polite as any he'd give to a court lady. Sigrid was absurdly grateful that he did not make her old friend feel like a country bumpkin.

She could feel Birna's curious eyes on her, and was suddenly eager to get on with their business. "As much as I'd love to keep talking, we're actually in Winterhold on urgent business. Must keep going."

To her surprise, Birna threw her arms impulsively around her, hugging her. "It's good to see you again, Sigrid. Good to know you're alive. Too, too many have gone from us. Don't be a stranger next time."

* * *

><p>Vilkas shook his head as they made their fare-wells with the trader. He had grown used to thinking of the woman as being a drifter, of having no roots. To suddenly see her in a place that she no longer belonged, but which still had the holds of history on her, was strange. She herself did not seem totally comfortable with it. He imagined that being reminded of the girl she had been could not have been easy. He tried to picture her with a waist-length braid, as Birna had mentioned, and failed. The woman was constantly full of surprises. <em>Admit it,<em> he thought to himself, _that's why you're following her…_ With a short grunt of annoyance, he pushed the thought from his mind.

They walked up the narrow stone bridge, as he let her take the lead. The College loomed before them, foreboding and dark. His innate distrust of magic colored that image, perhaps, but he knew he would feel more comfortable when they had gotten the information they would need and left once more. As they reached the top of the first ramp, he saw an Altmer woman standing there, to block the way, and his nostrils flared in disgust. _Elves_. Mages and elves, the worst possible combination.

The woman eyed them, her golden skin glowing with the reflected light of the recent snow, "Welcome to the College of Winterhold," she said calmly, "I am Faralda, one of the senior wizards here. I trust you found your journey to Winterhold not _entirely_ unpleasant?"

"Not entirely," Vilkas said gruffly.

"Now I must advise you that if your only purpose in being here is to complain, you would be far better off speaking with the Jarl of Winterhold. If, however, you seek something more, I will be happy to assist you. Why are you here?"

"We need to enter the College," Sigrid said, still watching the Altmer woman suspiciously. An air of power oozed from her, the unconscious arrogance that truly powerful mages possessed. She was correct to regard the Altmer so.

"Perhaps," she said, as pleasant as could be. "But what is it you expect to find within, hmm?"

"I seek the knowledge of the Elder Scrolls," Sigrid said shortly. _Good girl_, thought Vilkas. _Don't tell her too much_.

"Do you?" Faralda's cultured voice took on a tone of polite disbelief. "It is true that there are some here who have spent years studying the accumulated knowledge of the scrolls. But what you seek does not come easily, and can destroy those without a strong will. It would seem that the College has what you seek. The question now is what you can offer the College. Not just anyone is allowed inside. Those wishing to enter must show some degree of skill in magic, a small test, if you will." She eyed both of them, skeptically.

"Would you grant entry to the Dragonborn?" Sigrid said, and Vilkas groaned, inwardly. She had put an important card on the table, but perhaps—perhaps—it would enable them to move a little more quickly through this mess.

"Dragonborn?" Faralda said, her eyes widening. She smoothed out her skirts, looking Sigrid over a little skeptically. "It's been so long since we've had any contact with the Greybeards. Do you _really_ have the Voice? I would be most impressed to see that."

Sigrid stepped back, careful that she did not aim too close to the Altmer's body. "_Fus!_" she said, and he saw the blue bolt of energetic force fly from her lips, shattering against the stone bridge wall.

"So the stories are true…you are Dragonborn!" the Altmer gasped, and then her voice was bubbling excitedly out, the words tumbling over one another with the eagerness of a mage to get her hands on some sort of forbidden knowledge. "Normally you'd need to show some aptitude with one of the schools of magic, but you… I think there is much we can learn from each other. Your—ah—companion on the other hand…" She raised one eyebrow.

Vilkas growled, about to step forward and give this arrogant elf a piece of his mind, but Sigrid held up her hand. "He," she said with an arrogance to match anything Faralda had shown him, "Is with _me_. You keep him at the bridge, and I don't put one damn foot in your College. And then you'll never learn anything about the Voice. All we seek is information, most likely from the library." Surprised, he looked sideways at her, and she shot him a covert look of amusement. _You owe me_, she mouthed.

Faralda evidently thought it over, and then nodded sharply. "I'll lead you across the bridge to the Arcanaeum and Urag gro-Shub," she said, finally, "But you step one toe out of line and I'll fry you to a crisp. Please," she said, more cheerfully, "Follow me."

The Companions glanced at each other and he could see that Sigrid was stifling snickers of amusement again, and the observation alone was enough to lift his own spirits out of the annoyed fury towards which they had rapidly been sinking. As they followed her up the narrow ramps, Faralda suddenly paused and lifted her hands, and a sizzling bolt of magic flew from them, hovering above her. At the next level, he saw a little well of stone in the center of the round landing, at which the elf gestured again. Another burst of blue magic flew up from it too, a shining beacon into the sky, disappearing into the gray clouds ahead. He followed Sigrid carefully across a ruined section of the bridge, the drop below them sickeningly far, the sharp rocks in the gulf yawning up like teeth.

The courtyard itself had an admittedly stark beauty, with firs and snowberry bushes sprouting sparsely around the center, where another of the glowing blue beacons sent light up to the sky. The college itself wrapped around the circle in a half moon, the imposing stone buildings holding mysteries far beyond what he could imagine. He could see Sigrid's mouth set in a thin, uncomfortable line: for all she grew up across the bridge from this place, he could tell she had never been inside, and was accordingly discomfited.

Before they could say anything else, however, a dragon swooped down from the sky, breathing an icy blast of frost across the courtyard, leaving a trail of ice crystals in its wake. It shrieked in triumph and flew up for another attack. Instantly, everything was chaos. Faralda was instantly on her guard, firing off bolts of crackling lightning as the dragon wheeled away, as other mages poured out of the stone building too. Vilkas decided it would probably be wiser to stay out of this one, for the air was suddenly thick with ice spikes and thunderbolts and all manner of flames. By the time the dragon had flown in for a second pass, it was hit with every manner of spell, and one fire-breathing Nord. He glanced at Sigrid with his eyebrows raised and she looked back at him, a little sheepishly. "Well, I couldn't just let them do it alone!" she yelled over the din, before throwing herself back into it. Against the combined firepower of Winterhold, the dragon did not last long. It came crashing to earth in the middle of the courtyard, and the wizards murmured in shock as Sigrid approached it, her hands extended.

Though he had seen her absorb the souls before, he knew he would never grow used to it. And the mages, for all that they saw wonders every day, had never seen the like. As he watched, her familiar, broad-shouldered frame was surrounded by careening beams of golden light, the hissing of the wind and the magic wrapping around her like a cocoon of sound. For a moment she was otherworldly, terrible, a creature solely from legend. And then the light faded, and she looked over her shoulder to meet his eye with a small private grin, and he realized she'd been putting on a show for the benefit of the College, so that they would be able to move more smoothly. The mages, however, did not know such a thing and as Sigrid harvested the dragon of its remaining bones and scales, she was peppered with questions from all sides, about what she had done, about dragons and souls and the Voice. She evaded them as best she could, promising answers at a later date, after her business had been accomplished, and pushed her way through the crowds back to him.

"Apparently the Arcanaeum is this way," she said, jerking her head at a closed door.

He followed her, still a little amused. "Quite a show," he said under his breath.

"Wasn't it?" she said, smugly.

"Never thought you'd enjoy being the center of attention like that."

"Well, it does have its benefits every now and then," she admitted, as they walked up the winding set of stone stairs to a huge room, light streaming down from the high windows, lined with bookshelves.

Vilkas stared around him in wonder, and thought that whatever else the mages might have been up to, this was truly a reason to visit the college. He could imagine his younger self, as a child, having spent many happy hours buried amongst the shelves. Even now, the air, redolent of musty old paper and parchment and the glue of the spines, brought him back to a simpler time. He could tell that Sigrid was under no such memory, however. She seemed not even to notice the books, and went straight for the old, grizzled orc sitting by one of the locked shelves, books visible behind the glass. Vilkas' hands itched to shatter it, to see what secrets the books behind it held.

"You are now in the Arcanaeum, of which I am in charge," the orc grumbled, "It might as well be my own little plane of Oblivion. Disrupt my Arcanaeum, and I will have you torn apart by angry Atronachs."

They exchanged a glance and Vilkas mouthed _he's all yours_ at her.

"Now, do you require assistance?" the orc asked.

"I'm looking for an Elder Scroll," Sigrid told him.

"And what do you plan to do with it?" the orc demanded, highly offended, his voice echoing off of the stone walls. "Do you even know what you're asking about, or are you just someone's errand girl?"

"Of course I do," Sigrid said. "Do you have one here?"

"Do you think even if I did have one here, I would let you see it?" the orc said, gradually working himself into an offended lather. "It would be kept under the highest security! The greatest thief in the world wouldn't be able to lay a finger on it!"

"What about the Dragonborn?" Sigrid countered.

"What about… wait. Are you…? Were you the one the Greybeards were calling?" Urag gro-Shub looked between Sigrid and Vilkas, as if he was unsure which one of them could have been the fabled Dovahkiin. He eyed Vilkas for just a moment too long, and so he jerked his chin towards Sigrid, smirking just a little. "Well. That does change things. I'll bring you everything we have on them, but it's not much. So don't get your hopes up. It's mostly lies, leavened with rumor and conjecture."

They looked at each other again, and she shrugged. Whatever they were able to find would be more information with which they'd started. Urag gro-Shub rose from his seat and stalked over to one of the locked shelves, these behind heavier wood. He carefully removed two books with his huge hands, cradling them like delicate china between his rough fingers, as he set them down on the table. "Here you go. Try not to spill anything on them."

"Split up the reading?" Sigrid said.

"Why, not up for a little learning?" he mocked her.

"Not everyone can enjoy—oh, what is it the Companions used to call you—"

Thinking of Arnbjorn, Vilkas scowled. "Enough. We'll split them up."

He took the book entitled _Ruminations on the Elder Scrolls_, by Septimus Signus, while Sigrid took the other entitled _Effects of the Elder Scrolls_. As he opened the book he'd chosen, and read the first few paragraphs, his eyebrows went up in disbelief and dismay. He read: _Imagine living beneath the waves with a strong-sighted blessing of most excellent fabric. Holding the fabric over your gills, you would begin to breathe-drink its warp and weft. Though the plantmatter fibers imbue your soul, the wretched plankton would pollute the cloth until it stank to heavens of prophecy. This is one manner in which the Scrolls first came to pass, but are we the sea, or the breather, or the fabric? Or are we the breath itself?_ The book continued on in that vein, the mad writing rambling on and on in nonsensical metaphors. He looked up, frowning. "This _Ruminations_ book is bloody incomprehensible."

"Aye," said Urag gro-Shub, a frown on his fanged mouth, "that's the work of Septimus Signus, all right. He's the world's master of the nature of Elder Scrolls, but… well…"

"He's totally insane?" Vilkas said, dryly.

"He's been gone for a long while," the orc corrected him, "Too long."

"Where did he go?" Sigrid asked, curiously, shutting her own book. Evidently, there was nothing useful there.

"Somewhere up north, in the ice fields," the orc shrugged. "Said he found some old Dwemer artifact, but… well, that was _years_ ago. Haven't heard from him since. Now give me those bloody books back before you ruin them."

Sigrid pushed both of the books back across the table towards him, and nodded sharply at Vilkas. "Let's go."

* * *

><p>They did not head straight for the ice fields, however. After they hurried out of the College, promising Faralda that they would return when their business was concluded, Sigrid looked sideways at him and said, "Would you mind if we took a detour?" She was relieved, secretly, when he merely nodded. She knew that he knew what she was after.<p>

Luckily, the weather held on the trek up the mountains to her home. It was not quite a day's march, not now that she was fully grown and not so easily tired. She could feel her breath growing shallow as they grew closer, as the firs began to thicken into the forest of her youth. Even after so many years away, she could remember the exact path that she would have taken with her father, coming back from Winterhold to their little cabin in the woods. Vilkas did not speak as they walked, and she was thankful for that too, that out of anyone she could have brought on this trip, that he would be the one to understand. Without words, the warmth of him at her side was a solid comfort; for all of his arrogance and sarcasm, his silent company made it possible for her to face the woods again.

It was not the same as the night his memories had returned to him in Hjerim. She had never forgotten, but time had dulled the pain. Now, as she found the spot where the bandits had left him, as he tried to limp into the woods, no doubt to find and protect her, she could feel her muscles tensed, her shoulders hunching forward. These trees, this snow, were his grave. She had scattered his ashes here, and standing now in the clearings, with the distant howl of the wolves drifting on the wind, she had the strange feeling that she stood in a sort of temple or cathedral, of hallowed ground. So absorbed in these thoughts was she that she did not notice, at first, that he had gripped her shoulder with his hand, silently asking whether she could go on.

"This is where I found him," she said, her voice sounding lost and far-away, "This is where he fell. They cut him down with arrows first but when he wouldn't fall they put him to the sword. And they left him dying."

The fingers tightened, warming her chilled skin. He nodded, looking around, as though gauging how the bandits would have rushed through the trees to take her father down.

"We're not far now from where the house would have stood," she heard herself saying. "I don't know if it still stands. Tove's wasn't."

"Aye," he said.

The house was gone, and only the foundations remained, the stone remnants of a wooden cabin where she had spent her innocent, happy years. She crouched down in the middle of it and realized then how truly small their home had been: one room, barely enough space for a man and a small child, and then a big teenager, to settle. So small had her world been, but so large it had seemed at the time, so limitless. She hadn't known then how little time she would have had with him. Hadn't appreciated the little moments, hadn't properly hoarded them away. There were so many things she had forgotten, then and at other times. For a moment, in the snow, she was overcome with emotion, though no tears came. To see it now, after having run from it for so long: without the blood, not through the veil of her girlish tears. It became real to her now, that it was truly over. She had nothing to fear from memories. She had grieved, in her own way, though she had never stopped to contemplate it. He would not have wanted her to be crushed by her loss. What she had done, to run, to fight, to live, was exactly what he would have wanted. She looked up and realized Vilkas was sitting next to her in the snowy ruins, watching.

Almost as if he had read her mind, he said quietly, "He would have been proud of you, you know."

And it was only _then_ that her eyes filled with tears, and blinking them away, she smiled, wavering. "You bastard," she muttered, unable to look him in the eye.

He ignored that moment of weakness, thank the gods. "Come on," he said instead, "We've got a crazy old man to find."

"You're right," Sigrid said, and stood. Held out her hand to help him up, too. And with that she took one last long look at the ruins of her childhood, and squared her shoulders. "Let's go."


	24. Scrolls

**AN**: As always a reminder that although I really do appreciate all of the favorites/alerts, if you're reading, please, please let me know what you think? ;p What you like or what you don't like, that sort of thing. It's very helpful!

* * *

><p><em>Hast thou a friend whom thou trustest well,<br>from whom thou cravest good?  
>Share thy mind with him, gifts exchange with him,<br>fare to find him oft._

—The Poetic Edda, from_ Hávamál_, translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>Standing in the ruins of her childhood home, Vilkas realized when she had said she and her father were "dirt fucking poor" she hadn't been exaggerating. The stone foundation that had supported the wooden cabin was miniscule, overgrown even as it was with snowberry bushes and creeping mosses and lichens. He could picture the old man and his daughter, each at their separate ends of the cabin but only ten feet away, whiling away the stormy night; Sigrid a big, awkward girl with a waist-length braid. As she sat down abruptly in the snow, he bent down with her, watching her still: her eyes closed, her mouth set in a hard line. She exhaled. He had never been good with words, especially not in such a situation. But he remembered the night in Windhelm, when she had offered herself when he'd needed it, and knew he had to say <em>something<em>. And so he said quietly, "He would have been proud of you, you know."

Despite her resolute stone-face, as she looked up at him and her eyes filled. She blinked away the tears and smiled, though it was a wavering smile. "You bastard," she said, and looked away, unable to meet his eye.

He looked away, too, not wanting to embarrass her. "Come on," he said, "We've got a crazy old man to find." She didn't just stand: no, she extended a hand to help him to his feet. She had not put aside the grief of her youth but would not let it bow her. _Good girl_, he thought, and together they stood and walked from the crumbling remnants of her past.

The hike back to Winterhold proper was not a long one, but seemed longer. Sigrid had lapsed into contemplative silence, and he did not break it for her. Even when a snow bear came roaring from the forest and they both whirled to face the threat, she did not taunt it, as she usually did. That gave him pause, but evidently the walk had done her some good. By the time they reached the city, she had already figured out a plan to get out onto the ice fields without having to navigate the treacherous and ever-changing landscape. He followed her to one of the three homes remaining in Winterhold and stood at her side as she knocked.

An older, balding man answered, squinting at her. "Yes?" he asked, rather doubtfully, his eyes flicking over Sigrid's battered steel armor rather judgmentally.

At her side, Vilkas could feel a growl curling up in his throat, but she shot him a warning look and smiled tentatively at the door guard. "Thonjolf?" she said. "I need to speak to Kraldar. Tell him it's Haakon Frostborn's daughter. He'll know who I am."

Evidently, Thonjolf remembered, too. His eyes widened and he said with a wry twist of the mouth, "Haakon Frostborn, eh? Well, that's a name I ain't heard in many a winter. You'd better come in, then. Kraldar will at least be damned excited to know what's going on."

"He's notorious for it," Sigrid whispered in Vilkas' ear, too low, almost silent. Only his sharp hearing would have picked it up. "Always needed to know what was going on in Winterhold, even as a young man."

"Was _anything_ ever going on in Winterhold?" Vilkas whispered back.

"No, and that's the problem," she replied, with a brief grin.

But then they fell silent, for they had reached the main room of the house, and Kraldar sat at the long table. He stood suddenly when Thonjolf led them in; unsurprisingly, he did not seem to recognize Sigrid. Vilkas had the sneaking suspicion that the gawky girl she had been when she'd fled Skyrim bore little to no relation to the hardened warrior who stood confidently at his side, meeting Kraldar's eyes with a level gaze. The more he traveled with her, the more he could see her slipping on the skin of the _Dovahkiin_, a part she seemed to becoming more comfortable playing. A few weeks ago she would have hedged and hawed. He knew that she hated asking anyone for help or assistance if she could avoid it. But they needed a way to navigate the ice fields, and Kraldar had one.

Now she inclined her head to the older man, courteous but not submissive. "Kraldar," she said, "I'm sorry to interrupt your evening. I beg your aid, for the sake of the friendship you shared with my father, Haakon Frostborn."

Kraldar rose and approached them, and extended his hands. He looked Sigrid up and down with a curious gaze, one which Vilkas had a feeling was going to become quite common the longer they spent in Winterhold. "Haakon?" Kraldar asked, "I haven't seen him in years. I assumed he had gone to Sovngarde winters ago."

"He has," Sigrid confirmed.

Kraldar glanced from the woman and to Vilkas, standing there with his sword slung over his shoulder, and raised an eyebrow. "Why don't you break bread with me tonight and give me all of the news, and I'll see how I can help you."

He welcomed the chance to attack the food on the table, and though it was simple fare, rarely had roast pheasant and potatoes tasted so good to him as they did that night. The meat was accompanied by a hearty apple cabbage stew, and ale. Vilkas ate his fill, tearing bits of meat from the bone and listening as Sigrid and her old acquaintance spoke. Kraldar was a gracious host and most of all, she had been right: he was most interested in news. When Sigrid said they were hunting Septimus Signus, he broke into hearty laughter.

"That old coot?" Kraldar said, "Sure he went to Oblivion years ago. I don't know what you're expecting to find from him, even if he is alive. The old man's mad as a spring hare."

"So we've heard," Sigrid said. "But unfortunately, he's our best lead."

Vilkas soon found himself providing Kraldar with other news of the land, particularly of the Stormcloak rebellion. In Winterhold, though the Jarl leaned towards supporting Ulfric, there was not enough strategic importance to the poky backwater to merit extensive patrols or skirmishes. Kraldar had not known that General Tullius had been in Helgen nor that, after his daring escape, Ulfric had returned to Windhelm as though nothing had happened, protected by his guards and the Stormcloak soldiers themselves.

At the end of the meal, Kraldar leaned back in his chair and exhaled a happy sigh. "Thank you, my friends. You have given me the greatest gift of all: conversation and news. And for that I am grateful. Now tell me, how may I assist _you_?"

"We need to borrow your boat," Sigrid said.

"I see…" said Kraldar.

In the end, he gave them the use of his boat without trouble, and even helped them haul it down the treacherous icy slope to the shore, and stood there, waving them off, and he even sent them with a new supply of healing potions—_just in case_, he'd added. They decided to alternate rowing and navigating; Vilkas took the first shift while Sigrid sat at the front of the little boat and directed him, and held the torch. Vilkas, who had been stifling the urge to laugh for much of the dinner at the sheer humor of Kraldar's desperate enthusiasm for news, finally gave in when he was sure they had rowed far enough away.

"What?" said Sigrid, with a small grin, "Visitors are a big damn deal in Winterhold. You're so used to having a bloody army at your disposal that you forget what it's like to see the same three faces day in and day out."

"Tell me, then," he said dryly.

"You start to get very… restless."

"Would you have left even if your father had lived?" Vilkas asked, curious, trying to square the hardened adventurer before him with the image of her as a child, a woodland recluse, dressed in rags and hunting for her food in the snow. Below him, the boat sliced through the Sea of Ghosts, the water and ice a crystalline whisper. In the distance, the shifting waves sent the ice crunching into itself, almost like huge and ineffable footsteps. All he could see on the horizon were hilly islands, and then nothing, a wide-open expanse of darkness.

Silhouetted by the guttering torchlight, he watched her profile turn towards the sea, the unknown. "Probably," she admitted finally. "I always longed for adventure… and Da himself used to tell me such tales of the Great War that I think I probably would have joined the Legion eventually. But I would have waited. It wouldn't have been the same; I wouldn't have taken the path I took. I would have been older. Better prepared... It's a hard world for a girl on her own."

"You seem like you did enough well for yourself."

She laughed, then, the sound strangely muffled by the vast expanse of the world around them. "Oh, aye, but only by sheer luck! I almost died the first time."

"How?"

"I told you I took the first road to Morrowind after I scattered his ashes, aye? The first mercenary company I found there had a particular rule regarding new recruits. In order to join you had to survive a fight to the death. And, well… let's just say the man who volunteered for the job was a hell of a lot bigger than me. And meaner." She grinned, humorlessly, and touched the crooked bridge of her nose with one finger of her free hand. "He broke half of the bones in my face before I could grab my knife."

"Ysmir," Vilkas swore.

"Here," Sigrid said, and changed the subject, "It's my turn to row." They shifted carefully in the boat, so that their weight did not overturn the narrow vessel, and settled down again. He held the torch now, and watched the shift of her muscles as she pulled the boat through the sea. "And what about you?" she asked. "How old were you when you took the beast blood?"

"Fifteen," he said. In retrospect it seemed so young. At the time he had only been wildly excited to be considered a man grown, flush with the responsibility and the power. Now, with the benefit of years, he wondered whether he would have made the same decision if Jergen had waited another five winters. _No_, he said, _I would have always accepted it. I wanted to belong to the Circle too damn badly._ "Fifteen when Jergen came to me and Farkas and told us that we were ready. We went through the ceremony together."

"You've been a werewolf for as long as I've been wandering," she said softly.

"We're old," Vilkas said sourly, "Is what I think you're trying to say."

She laughed as she rowed, and said, "Perhaps. I feel damn old most of these days." They were beginning to come to a dangerous point in the ice fields, large chunks floating in patterns like cracked skin. Close enough to make navigating through them difficult, and possibly deadly. "But… I don't feel the call of the blood the same way that you seem to. Even though you've had it for so many more years."

"I'm not sure about that," he admitted. "I think it may have something to do with the dragon's soul fighting for dominance. In the moonlight, before you were able to grow accustomed to it the beast blood was able to seize hold, but now…"

"Now that damn dragon magic wins out," Sigrid said sourly, "Again."

"Wait," Vilkas interrupted, as he caught sight of another boat, pulled up before an icy protuberance that rose from the sea. Twin torches burned on either side of what looked like a wooden door. "I think we might have found a dwelling of some sort."

"Could it be?" Sigrid asked, "The elusive Septimus?"

"We'll find out," he replied, and she rowed them over to the little icy island, until the water solidified enough so that he could jump out onto it, and begin to pull the boat onto the ice. She followed, and together they hauled the rowboat so that it rested next to the other, far enough out of the water that, barring some drastic shift in the ice, it would not float away. _I hope it won't, anyway_, he thought. He was always more comfortable on land.

* * *

><p>Sigrid approached the hole in the ice with some trepidation. The ice fields were notoriously unstable, and though this particular berg seemed solid, they could also be deceptive. There was no telling how far the ice extended below the water, or whether it would hold their weight. However, it seemed that someone had been down into the ice, for a roughly constructed wooden ladder poked up from the hole. "I'll go first," she said to Vilkas, to forestall any arguments. This way, at least if something broke or if she fell, he would not be trapped as well. Despite its rickety appearance, however, the ladder proved to be more solid than it looked. She did not look down as she went, and as she dropped down from the last rung, she found herself on a broad, smooth platform of ice, roughened so that boots would not slide down it.<p>

"It's safe," she called up, in a rough whisper, and looked up, waiting for him to descend. She couldn't lie; she rather enjoyed the view.

When he'd jumped down next to her, he took the lead, as they found themselves in a narrow hallway, the ice glowing blue with the light from the depths. Deathly cold and eerie as a catacomb. The hall proved to be short, however, and she gasped when she saw what lay below them: a vast cavern, in which the tiny figure of a hooded man paced back and forth in front of an immense box several times his size, golden and glowing in the torchlight. It looked, to her uneducated eye, as though it were of Dwemer make. She could see that the man had set up a rough sort of home in the ice, with a bed and a little kitchen table and all of the base trappings of comfort. This must be Septimus, the lonely exile in the ice.

Vilkas began to walk down the curving ramp to the floor of the cavern, Sigrid following closely behind, her eyes wide as she could see more details of the box. It was intricately carved, with three glowing blue stones set in the front. A faint hum emerged from it, almost inaudible, singing at the very edge of her hearing like a siren song. She shuddered, and mouthed at Vilkas, _let's hurry up so we can get out of here._ He nodded in sharp agreement, eyeing the box with disgust, and she knew that he could hear it, too. The air smelled of ice and the sea and metal and unwashed old man, and she gagged a little.

The old man had yet to notice them, still pacing back and forth, back and forth. "Dig, Dwemer, in the beyond," he said, his wavering voice a singsong, "I'll know your lost unknown and rise to your depths!" At the sound of her footsteps crunching on the ice, he turned suddenly and fixed them with mad eyes, eyes that saw them and did not see them. Though he looked directly at Vilkas, his eyes were seeing something far beyond the other man. Through the ice. Through the entire known world and somewhere into Oblivion.

"I heard you are the expert on the Elder Scrolls," Sigrid said loudly, and he turned that bizarre gaze upon her as she spoke.

"When the top level was built, no more could be placed. It was, and _is_, the maximal apex!" Septimus Signus crowed.

"Er… yes," she said. "Do you know about the Elder Scrolls?"

"Elder Scrolls," the old man said, stepping forward. Suddenly, his gaze was too focused, too intense, as though he would rend her apart simply with the power of his eyes. "Indeed. The Empire. They absconded with them. Or so they think. The ones they saw. The ones they thought they saw." He looked shiftily at them, suddenly cunning. "I know of one. Forgotten. Sequestered."

"Where?" Vilkas demanded.

"But I cannot go to it, not poor Septimus, for I... I have arisen beyond its grasp," Septimus murmured, as though he had not heard the question. She could actually see his eyes losing their focus and grasp on reality, even as she watched.

"Where is it?" Vilkas repeated.

"Here. Well, here as in this plane. Mundus. Tamriel. Nearby, relatively speaking," the old man said, giggling as he watched their frustration. "On the cosmological scale, it's all nearby."

Sigrid stifled a small smile of her own as Vilkas shot a look of helpless fury at her. Talking to Septimus Signus was like running through a maze that branched off in innumerable directions, all of them dead ends. "Look," she interrupted him before he could begin rambling again, "Can you help us find an Elder Scroll or not?"

"One block lifts the other," the man said, that sly look back in his mad eyes again. "Septimus will give you what you want, but you must bring him something in return, mmm?"

"What do you want?" Vilkas demanded, instantly suspicious.

"You see this masterwork of the Dwemer? Deep inside, their greatest knowings. Septimus is clever among men, but he is an idiot child compared to the dullest of the Dwemer," he said.

_Clever? _thought Sigrid. _More like a madmen among men._

"Lucky then they left behind their own way of reading the Elder Scrolls. In the depths of Blackreach one yet lies. Have you heard of Blackreach? 'Cast upon where Dwemer cities slept, the yearning spire hidden learnings kept,'" he went on, breaking into his creaking singsong again. She had the distinct impression that though he might be mad, he also greatly enjoyed leading them on, frustrating them, his lips trembling inside of the ratty beard that ringed his face, matted with grease and filth.

"Where is this 'Blackreach'?" she asked.

"Under deep. Below the dark. The hidden keep. Tower Mzark," the old man said, giggling at his own cleverness. "Alftand. The point of puncture, of first entry, of the tapping. Delve to its limits, and Blackreach lies just beyond. But not all can enter there. Only Septimus knows the hidden key to loose the lock to jump beneath the deathly rock."

"So how do we get in?" Vilkas cut in, impatient again.

The old man held up one thin, spindly finger. "Two things I have for you. Two shapes. One edged, one round. The round one, for tuning," he said, ticking off the list on his fingers. "Dwemer music is soft and subtle, and needed to open their cleverest gates. The edged lexicon, for inscribing. To us, a hunk of metal. To the Dwemer, a full library of knowings. But... empty. Find Mzark and its sky-dome. The machinations there will read the scroll and lay the lore upon the cube. Trust Septimus. He knows you can know." And then, rummaging through a chest nearby, he took out two objects, cradling them as if they were the most valuable things in the entire world. He handed the sphere to Sigrid and the lexicon to Vilkas. "Go now! Leave Septimus to his studies."

As they went back up the ramp, Sigrid whispered to Vilkas, "We must return to Kraldar's house, a boat thief's an unforgiveable louse."

He groaned in dismay. "That was truly awful. Please tell me that madness isn't catching."

She grinned at him over her shoulder as she went for the ladder. "Didn't you tell me I was already mad?"

"Yes," he said, looking up at her, "But at least you weren't _rhyming_."

"The ladder up into the night, come, my boy, let's not fight…"

"I'm going to _kill_ you."

It was still dark, only the light of the aurora and the moons to illuminate the sea, when they emerged into the open air, and she estimated it must have been a little before nine o'clock. Sigrid took a deep lungful of it, relieved to have escaped from the stench of the old Imperial. "Alftand," she said, as they pushed the boat back into the water. "Do you know of it?"

"It's the ruin we passed, not far from Saarthal," Vilkas said, frowning. "We should take it with care, though… there are unpleasant things lurking in those old Dwemer ruins."

"Unpleasant things?" Sigrid asked.

"Snow elves," Vilkas replied.

"You're joking," Sigrid said. "The Falmer are extinct. They're legends. Bedtime stories to scare little children."

"I can assure you that they're quite bloody real," he said. "You really _have_ been gone a long time."

To that, she said nothing, but soon frowned as she realized that while they had been talking they had begun to drift off course. The shore where they had first pushed the boat into the sea was no longer visible, and in the near distance, she could see in the flickering light of the aurora the frame of a lighthouse, guiding them in. She rowed towards the shore, to get their bearings and then figure out which direction would be necessary to row back to Winterhold. Vilkas, on the other hand, suddenly tensed.

"What is it?" she asked him, concerned.

"Blood," he said grimly. "Something… terrible… happened at that lighthouse."

She looked up at it again, and the light flickering in the night now seemed eerie. A call for help, to which they could not help but respond.

The door of the lighthouse hung open, and Sigrid gagged when they stepped inside. Despite the circulating air the stench of death was overwhelming. Blood spattered over everything and there were clear signs of a struggle: scattered furniture, broken porcelain. She looked at Vilkas to make sure that he was not suffering from the same affliction that had felled him in Hjerim, but he seemed unaffected, moving grim-faced through the room as they investigated. In the center of the room, the corpse of a Redguard woman in her middle years lay, covered in blood and with a primitive-looking black war axe protruding from her stomach. At the fireplace, a dead insect, almost the size of a hunting hound, lay with its wicked claws motionless.

"Falmer," Vilkas swore.

"That's what their weapons look like?" Sigrid asked, running her finger over the edge of the axe. It did not feel like metal. Almost organic. She was reminded, strangely, of the shell of a beetle, and shuddered.

"Yes," Vilkas said grimly. "They're made from the chitin of the chaurus—those are the damned insects they herd. Watch out for them, if you see them alive. They're poisonous. Worse than frostbite spiders."

She shuddered again, as they split up to look around the room for hints as to what had happened, whether the woman had been alone. Sigrid found a key, presumably to one of the cellar doors, in a burial urn on the mantelpiece. She held the smooth metal in her hands, and thought about this woman going about her usual day, cleaning and neatening up the lighthouse, unaware that she was about to die a horrible, painful death. And with the creeping of goosebumps rising on her flesh, she heard… something from behind the walls. A chittering, shivering noise.

"Sigrid!" Vilkas called from the right hand bedroom. "Come here and read this."

It was the woman's journal. Her name was Ramati, and she and her husband Habd had moved to the lighthouse not long before she had met her doom at the hands of an axe… with their two children, who were nowhere to be seen. "Vilkas," she said. "If the children aren't here… where are they?"

He looked grimly at the walls—they could still hear the noise, clear as day. "The Falmer sometimes take live captives."

Sigrid stood abruptly. "We can't just leave without finding them. What if they're still alive?"

"You're right," he said, and then sighed. "The journals mentioned noise from the cellar—it's likely they tunneled up that way."

"What are we waiting for?"

She unlocked the door to the cellar with the key they had found, and cautiously, they went down the stairs, hugging the wall to avoid a rusty bear trap that had been set up in the middle. At first the cellar itself appeared to be mostly in order, a normal storage room: braids of garlic and dried frost mirriam hanging from the ceilings, barrels of potatoes stored up against the long winters in the corners. As they walked, however, with a sudden skittering of chitin on stone and a hiss of corrosive spit, something lunged for them. Before she quite knew what she was doing, for it happened almost too quickly to draw her sword, Sigrid reacted with the Voice: the words exploded from her lips and the monster—for it was a monster, and looked rather like a giant earwig—the same disgusting insect that had been killed in front of the fireplace—went flying against the wall in a crash. Vilkas had already drawn his sword and was ready when the thing came rushing for them again, the Skyforge steel chopping down through the chitin of its skull, separating the head with its wicked pincers from the rest of its body. It shuddered, and died, staining the floor with sticky black blood.

Sigrid stared at it, wide-eyed, and then at Vilkas, who smirked. "I told you the Falmer weren't myths."

"Bollocks," she swore. "I wish you weren't right." At the far end of the cellar they could see the tunneled opening where the monsters had broken through, and she shuddered. "Well… come on. Any delay could mean death for the rest of this family."

And so they descended into the icy abyss.

Sigrid's first sight of the Falmer shook her. In all of her time wandering Tamriel, she had rarely seen a creature so—wrong. Their hunched backs and pink, watery blind eyes and wicked fangs, their chalk-pale skin all set her nerves on edge. They were vicious fighters, especially in packs, and Sigrid found herself wishing that they had _remained_ myths and legends. In the first room, after a particularly hairy fight, they found one of the children's remains: an older boy than they had been expecting, almost a man. He'd fought back, defensive marks slicing through his hands, but in the end a sword impaled through his chest had taken him down. Sigrid closed his staring eyes, her fingers pushing the waxy skin down, and together they buried him beneath the snow. "May you find peace in whatever afterlife you believe in," she muttered.

"It's not looking good for the girl or her father," Vilkas pointed out.

"I know," she replied, standing again, "But we have to try."

Moving cautiously through the next passageway carved into the ice, the Companions found themselves in a large clearing with a number of dwelling tents and _pens_, the fences constructed from what appeared to be more chaurus chitin. The battle here was short and vicious, with the two of them fighting back to back, Sigrid trying her best to block the poisonous spittle with her shield. She missed, and some of it burned into the flesh of her arm, the pain momentarily blurring her vision and staggering her. She could feel Vilkas starting to turn to see if she was hurt and she cried, "No! Keep fighting! If you falter, they'll swarm—" She was not above using the flames, not in this situation. A fierce joy took hold of her as she watched the Falmer burning, the last one alive running in circles as it howled in wordless agony. _Good_, she thought savagely, suddenly feeling quite murderous.

In one of the pens, Vilkas found the body of the girl, Sudi. They both read the hastily scrawled, bloody notes that she had left behind, eyes meeting solemnly above her body. She had killed herself, a dull iron dagger through her heart, rather than allow the monsters to eat her alive. "A brave family," Vilkas said, as they covered her body in snow, as well, to hide her from the indignities of her final resting place.

"For all the damn good it did them," Sigrid said sadly. She knew how those children must have felt coming upon their mother that way. Knew all too well.

They continued through the winding passages, occasionally stopping to fight the chaurus as they went. Sigrid's skin crawled every time she heard the tell-tale skitter of many jointed legs over the ice. Together, they destroyed them, Vilkas' greatsword cleaving through even the hard outer shell that covered them. Secretly, she was glad to have him at her side: the chaurus had an unfortunate tendency to rush in from two sides at once, slashing with their vile pincers as they spat bile-filled poison into your eyes. If she hadn't had the man there to cover her flank, it would have been a much more difficult fight. Maybe she would not have made it out. All it required was one mistake, letting the chaurus swarm over you. Eventually they came to a point of the corridor where the only way to continue was to drop down into the cold water below. Glowing blue chaurus egg pods ringed the pool, giving the entire room an eerie look. She could see their dark frames scuttling through the water below them, and shuddered.

"Vilkas… if we jump, we won't be able to get back up to this ledge."

"There's always some other way out," he said, more confidently than she felt. "Come on. We've got to finish what we started. If Habd is still alive, he's sick…"

"You're right," she said, and took a deep breath. With a wild war cry, she threw herself from the ledge, landing atop one of the chaurus. It struggled wildly beneath her, the surprising strength of it almost throwing her off as she fought it, attempting to twist its head so that it could stab her with its pincers. Instead, stabbing downward with the sword, Sigrid drove her blade through its head. Even the blood felt poisonous, and she rose from the corpse feeling filthy, as though a thin film of grease had been rubbed over her body. No time to worry now, for there were other insects rushing them, and she could not leave him to fight them alone. When it was over, their blades coated in black blood and breathing hard, their eyes met above the corpses.

He exhaled. "Come on. We've got to be almost all of the way through by now."

Another long, winding corridor through the ice. With the water soaking through her clothes from the foul pool and the closeness of the icy walls, she shivered. A feeling of foreboding had settled over her shoulders, though for the life of her, she could not figure out why _now_ rather than any other time they'd been crawling through this cavern of horrors. And now they emerged into a broad cavern fringed with stalactites. At first she thought that there were solely more chaurus, which rushed from the far edge of the cave to attack them, but then she realized that these creatures were not alone: rising from the ice was a monstrously large chaurus, at least three times the size of the others, which rushed them too.

What happened next blurred into a film of horror.

They were swarmed with clicking pincers and shivering legs, and the huge, horse-sized chaurus led the charge. She fought as best she could, as quickly and viciously as she could, fighting through the blurry vision and pain of the poison her breath sounding ragged and shallow in her ears. All of her attention narrowed down to focus on the task in front of her. _Just survive this, just survive this, just survive this, _she thought, the mantra that had gotten her through battle after battle. Finally, she whirled to face the monstrous chaurus and saw a sight that made her heart drop into her stomach.

It had taken Vilkas down, or the combined effects of the poison and the nasty slashes across his chest had taken him down, and the man lay crumpled on the icy floor of the cave, unmoving, with the reaper atop him, about to bite down.

Afterwards she could not remember exactly how she had killed the monster. Only that her body seemed to be moving without conscious thought, because all she could remember was thinking: _NO, no. Not now, not now_, and her limbs following muscle memory as she attacked the reaper, as it left its victim to attack her in turn. She fought it with an energy she hadn't known she still possessed, the sword biting through its chattering mouth and up through its exoskeleton.

When it was over, she knelt next to him, her hands shaking as she pulled his head up into her lap. His face was slack and still, his eyes closed and the lids shadowed. He looked dead. She had held many comrades as they slowly died in her arms. She had even dealt the killing blow beforehand, for some of them. She had slept next to their bodies in the night, when light and movement would have given away their position and made burying them impossible. And yet, she could not recall this feeling of nausea, of pure, strained, worry that consumed her in this moment. She could not let him die. Not here in this filthy, reeking chaurus hole. She could not, or she would never be able to forgive herself.

"No, gods-damn it," she growled, "You're not allowed to die. You're not, you're fucking not." She realized that the words were coming from her mouth without any rhyme or reason, almost as if by keeping up a steady chatter she could ground herself in reality. _Healing potions. Kraldar had given her healing potions._ And then she was fumbling with the flap of the pack she'd thrown from her back, carefully lifting his head to pour the sickly sweet liquid down his throat. "Don't die, don't die, don't die," she repeated, hand against his neck as she felt for a pulse and thank the gods, it was there, faint but weak, a soft tattoo beneath her fingers. She dribbled the potion bit by bit into his open mouth so that she would not choke him, and watched as the color gradually returned to his face, and the vicious wounds that had rent his skin began to close.

Only when she finally released it did she realize she'd been holding her breath.

* * *

><p>He woke to a rough hand brushing his hair away from his face, and a voice muttering over and over, <em>please don't die please don't die. Don't fucking die. Don't fucking <em>die.

He remembered, then. This was, occasionally, the problem with a two-handed weapon: it was difficult to block such attacks. He remembered the combined effects of the chaurus' poison and the weight of the reaper's claws suddenly overwhelming him. The black rising up and at the far end of it, the distant sound of wind rippling through the trees of a wood, the howl of a wolf and the baying of the hounds. He squinted up at Sigrid, whose face swam into focus above him. His head was in her lap. "Don't tell me you were _worried_," he said, and his voice sounded weak even to his ears. "Not like I'm going anywhere, aye?"

To his surprise, she bent down over his head and kissed him hard, almost desperately, despite the filth that covered both of them from head to toe. A messy, painful clash of teeth and tongue that said nothing of technique and everything of emotion. "You _asshole,"_ she growled, when she finally broke away. "Don't you fucking dare do that again! Don't you fucking _dare_."

It occurred to him that, perhaps, she was really worried. Terrified, actually. Her eyes were wide and her face, smudged with war paint and blood, was pale. He had never seen her like this before and it unnerved him. Instead of saying anything just yet he sat up, through the pain, and took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. "Hey," he said. "Come on. It's going to take more than a bloody earwig to kill _me_."

She was still breathing hard, almost, he thought sardonically, as if she'd been the one at the edge of Hircine's forest instead of him. "Right," she said. "Right." With one last, brief brush of her hand across his face, as if making sure that the healing potion had really worked, that his eyes were really open and his lungs pumping air, she stood up and extended her hand to him.

He took it, hauling himself to his feet, though his body ached and he could feel the new pink skin that knit together the wounds the reaper had inflicted. He could see, on the arch above the cavern, that there was a door leading out. But first…

All that remained of Habd was a bloody skull and a few scraps of bone. He realized, then, that he could have met the same fate, had Sigrid not been there when she was. Not that he hadn't saved _her_ life in those tunnels, of course, but the fact remained that he felt a strange sort of pity for the sad remains. "One of the journals said that he wanted to be burned in the lighthouse fire," Vilkas said quietly. "Let's take him up there. It's the least we can do for him. For not being in time to save his family."

"Aye," said Sigrid, and bent to pick up the bones, without hesitation, without flinching.

Together, they found their way up to the top of the lighthouse. It was still dark, the aurora flickering overhead in a silent dance. Vilkas lit the fire, carefully banking the embers, and the sudden glow illuminated the cold ground below. Silently, he watched as Sigrid placed first Habd's skull, then the few remaining bones into the bowl of the fire. Sparks flew at the contact, and they stood back. She sidled across and slipped her hand into his, her fingers lacing through his fingers as they watched Habd burning, a strange feeling of peace descending across his shoulders. As though the Redguard knew what they had done for him, somewhere. Beyond this plane of existence.

"Damn," he said.

Sigrid nodded her agreement, squeezed and released his hand. And together, they went down the stairs and back out into the world.

* * *

><p>By the time they rowed back to Winterhold to return Kraldar's boat, the sun was beginning to peak, though both of them were exhausted. Kraldar, ever hospitable, demanded that they take the time to bathe, sleep for a few hours, and eat before leaving for Alfthand. Though Sigrid protested at first, Kraldar frowned charmingly at her and said, "Haakon would never forgive me if I let his daughter out in such a state." And so, faced with such reasoning, she relented. Kraldar's house was large: not as big as the Jarl's longhouse, but large enough to possess a guest room with an attached tub. She let Vilkas have the first bath, helping Thonjolf heat and haul the buckets of water up the stairs.<p>

Finally, finally, it was her turn. She sank gratefully into the metal bath, the water already cooling, and ducked beneath the surface. There had been a time in her life when she'd thought she would never truly feel clean. How far she'd come since then. She was still ambivalent about a hero's destiny, but the words _he'd be proud of you, you know_ had done more to cleanse her than any amount of soap and water could. Breaking the surface of the water again, with a gasp, she saw that he'd already fallen into the bed, hair still dripping wet, fast asleep. After rubbing her hair dry with the towel provided, she slipped in after him, and in his sleep, he turned towards her, arm sliding over her waist.

She let herself drift.

* * *

><p>They slept for only a few fitful hours, but it was enough. Vilkas felt like a new man when he rose, especially after a quick breakfast provided by their host. Kraldar turned down all thanks, especially after they told him of what they had found in the lighthouse. "You've given me more news in two days than I've had in two bloody years," the man said dismissively when Sigrid tried to offer him payment. "All I can ask is that you visit again."<p>

Finally they were on their way to Alftand. Despite the hike, he remembered the lift of the ruin, and consequently once they found the path, it was only a matter of making the hike. The wind whistled through the valleys of the mountains, the snow drifting lazily and unhurriedly down from the grayed-out sky. He noted the mammoth skulls they passed, in the event that giants might have been nearby. And then, as the path curved around through the mountains, he saw the ruins of Alftand in the distance, the stone towers rising up from the white mountain. The silence, as they trudged toward the ruins, was palpable, heavy, almost weighted. Two wooden shacks, ruined by the years and the wind, sat on either side of what looked like an encampment that had been abandoned for a time, but not so long. He could still smell the faint scent of Khajiit on the bedrolls, and the fire, though cold, was not yet covered by snow.

But there was no entrance into Alftand proper, there. They made their way towards the edge of the cliff, where a yawning chasm dropped down to the main portion of the ruins. A rope bridge with wooden slats could be seen connecting the parts together. To make it all the way down would require a walk of epic proportions… or there was another option. He looked sideways at the woman, a sly grin on his face. "What d'you say we jump for it?"

She looked down at the sharp drop, face a little green, and back at him. "You're mad."

"Don't tell me you're scared?" he teased her, "Not the bloody _Dovahkiin_, scared of a little jump?"

"Fuck you," she said, and punched him in the arm, before tensing her legs and leaping into the void.

He followed.

They both landed hard, Vilkas on his feet and Sigrid sprawling in an undignified heap, perilously close to the edge. She was laughing, her eyes wide and her face pink. "Holy shit, that was the worst idea you've ever had, man! For Ysmir's sake."

"You have to admit that was fun," he said, waiting for her to pick herself up. They both knew it was: both of them lived for that adrenaline rush, the moment of not-knowing whether they'd live or die.

"I'll do no bloody such thing," she muttered, and then scowled at the opening into the ruins. "Come on. We've got an Elder Scroll to locate."

Someone had tunneled through the glacier, with the passageway shored up hastily but apparently sturdily enough. Although he couldn't see it at first, he could smell, with a sinking stomach, the metallic scent of blood. The remnants of a larger expedition were scattered around them: shovels and picks, saws and hammers. Vilkas found a journal sitting on a barrel, and shook his head. The expedition had become trapped when the glacier shifted and collapsed, and the rest of the journal remained blank. In Skyrim, those who took the time to record their deeds never seemed to live to tell the tale. He preferred not to write, but to allow the bards to sing of them later. "Treasure hunters," he said dismissively, closing it. "No sign of them now—wait." As they moved forward cautiously, swords drawn, they saw that the ice had been stained with blood, the gnawed bones of the expedition scattered carelessly around.

"Falmer?" Sigrid asked grimly.

"You can smell them," he confirmed. And he could. A stench of blood magic and damp, dark earth, like the bite of a poisonous mushroom growing in a dank cave.

"Bloody hell."

"Aye." He did not want to face them again so soon either, but delve too deeply below Skyrim's surface, and all roads led to the Falmer, eventually. The Dwemer had been mad in their expansion, and somehow he wondered whether they weren't all sitting on a powderkeg, waiting to explode. "Shh," he said, as he began to creep forward. "Don't know who's left…"

"Where is it?" he could hear the voice of a Khajiit growling, "I know you were trying to keep it for yourself, J'zhar… You always try to keep it for yourself!" The voices seemed to echo all around them as they followed the path's loop around, down into the ruins, the stones carved with ancient designs, water spouting and dripping from a ceiling ripe with stalactites. The glacier had intruded even upon the snow, the vast walls of ice breaking through the tower itself. Despite the voice, they saw no one but the ruins of a dwarven machine and another journal of research notes.

This time Sigrid took it, and snorted when she saw the last sentence. "I saw something moving in the dark so I'm going to go look at it. This is all so exciting!" she said mockingly. "Gods, academics are strange."

They explored carefully around the large room, until with a loud pop of metal, two mechanical spiders leapt out at them. "Fuck!" Sigrid swore, kicking one away from her with a booted foot. It recovered quickly, all of its legs moving in concert to right itself as it rushed for her again. The second spider launched itself at Vilkas' face, and he hit it out of the air with the sword in a way that reminded him of a popular child's ball game in Whiterun. It crumpled to the ground in a shower of gears and spare parts. They continued on their way through the tunnels, finding more signs of the expedition before them: blood splotches, discarded tools, and broken spiders. Sigrid yelped in surprise as one of the spiders dropped down from the ceiling, stomping on it energetically with her foot. When he looked at her with a raised eyebrow, she said sheepishly, "Look, I just don't _like_ those things, all right?"

"Aye," he said innocently.

As they continued to follow the path deeper into Alfthand, they came across more blood spatters, recent and shining dark on the snow. A Khajiit, standing over the corpse of another cat, leapt to his feet, snarling. "What? Who is this, Brother? Another of the smooth skins looking for food? But these were not trapped with us…" He ran at them with his shovel, only to meet the point of Vilkas' sword.

"Strange," Sigrid said, as she watched him tug the blade free of the cat's body.

"Driven mad, no doubt…" he muttered. "Whatever this expedition was after, I'm afraid they found it. And more."

They went on their way. In the distance they could hear the pop and hiss of huge mechanisms moving in the dark, and Sigrid shuddered again. Though she had never visited one before, she told him that she knew instinctively that she despised the Dwemer ruins. Everything about them was wrong: the cold stone benches and beds, the hiss of steam, the harsh angles and curious carvings. And, she found, the hidden guardians that rolled from the walls, mechanical men balanced delicately on rolling wheels, slashing with vicious arms that ended in blades. They went further and further into the ruins, the deeper they went the more intact Dwemer artifacts remained. Vilkas had been inside of these ruins before, but even he had to agree with her. Everything _felt_ wrong. It may have been an accomplished, ancient culture, but if even their home cities were so cruel and inhospitable, he could not have imagined what the men themselves must have been like. He thought of Whiterun, sunny and welcome, and suddenly had an intense desire to return home.

But, as she had said, they had an Elder Scroll to find.

Alfthand proved vaster even than he had thought, with innumerable winding corridors and carefully laid traps. They fought the mechanical spiders that dropped from the walls, and deeper into the lower levels of Alfthand, they fought the Falmer, with their sightless pink eyes and their horrific tableaus of human flesh and dread alchemical ingredients, their tents and rough-hewn homes reminiscent of the encampments below the lighthouse. They moved carefully down long, winding stone stairways in the midst of the city remains, the drop below them yawning down into nothing. Sigrid peered over the edge and scowled. "I sure's hell wouldn't want to try your little rope bridge trick _here_."

"And I wouldn't ask you to," Vilkas said. He could imagine the drop, the crush of bone on stone. And darkness. He was relieved that Sigrid was with him and not Ria or Njada, or even Farkas, really. Though he felt confident that Farkas would have protected his back, Sigrid's wry stream of commentary and the sharp joy that she took in destroying the Falmer mirrored his own.

Finally, they had reached the end of Alfthand, it seemed: a room with a wide staircase at each end, and the remnants of a Dwemer centurion sprawled on the ground, totally destroyed. The stairs led up to another door, giving the entire thing the appearance of an eerie town plaza. As they approached the stairs the other centurion lurched into life, detaching from the wall and lurching towards them with a hiss of steam that smelled like oil and blood, and burned damply. He glanced at Sigrid and at the centurion, and she nodded, having picked up on his plan. They split up, with Sigrid running in front of the centurion screaming at it. The distraction.

"Hey, rust-brains!" she yelled. "Over here! Yes, you! Over here! You're slow as hell, what, the years rust your balls together or something?"

The centurion lurched for her, surprisingly fast for such a huge frame. As it did, Vilkas was on it, the greatsword slamming into the chest of the machine, over and over again. He cursed: Eorlund was going to kill him when he had to bring the sword in for sharpening. He could only hope that it would hold. The centurion swung around, confused by this attack. As it turned to face him, now it was Sigrid who attacked from behind, first with her sword, and after screaming at Vilkas to get out of the way, with all of the force of the dragon's Voice behind her. The centurion, already weakened, flew like a rag doll from the air, off the height of the stairs, where it crashed to the floor.

Sigrid opened the gates, and he followed her, stepping carefully. "Quiet," he muttered in her ear. "Men ahead."

"Sulla, let's just get out of here," came a woman's voice, heavy with authority. "Hasn't there been enough death?"

"Oh, of course you want me to leave!" a man replied. "Just waiting for me to turn my back so you can have all the glory for yourself!"

Vilkas shot a glance at Sigrid as the two warriors crept around the back of the pillar. So this must have been the last remnants of the ruined expedition they had been tracking through Alfthand. What a load of absolute skeevers they had turned out to be. He thought Sigrid might have been about to interfere, so he held up his hand, gesturing for silence. That they should wait. However, as she inched forward to hear the conversation better, one of them exclaimed, "I thought I heard something!" before their battle started in earnest. Vilkas could hear the slap of flesh against metal as the two combatants screamed at each other, vile curses and promises. He could feel the woman next to him, tense and eager to interfere. "_No_," he mouthed.

Finally, the woman seemed to have won, and began to prowl around the room, breathing heavily, panting as if winded—or wounded. Her voice sounded malformed, as though something was wrong with her mouth. "I know you're in here!" she growled, and as she rounded the corner Vilkas saw with disgust that half of her face had been burnt off by the Imperial officer's sword. Even if they let her go, she would not long survive, not in the depths of the ruins. He moved forward quickly, to put her out of her misery. A quick cut across the throat and her body fell, still and silent.

Sigrid exhaled and said: "Look. In the center. It's the same three stones that were on Signus' lock box."

"Aye, it is," he said, frowning. "I suppose you put the attunement sphere in the center…?"

"It's worth a try." She rummaged around in her pack for the small sphere. As she slipped it into the appropriate slot, with a grinding of stone, a long staircase lowered down into unknown depths, leading up to a huge bronze door. "Well… I think this is it."

"Blackreach?" he said.

She opened the door, and gasped. "Holy shit. _Blackreach._"

The curse was warranted. No amount of description could have prepared him for what he saw on the other side of the door. A huge, cavernous expanse stretched miles into the distance—the sheer scope of the place alone defied cataloguing. And the eerie beauty left him speechless. The cavern was like a dark and starless night, stretching up into infinity, lit by the glowing phosphorescence of gigantic glowing mushrooms, floating from the ceiling, hanging from the ceiling, bathing everything in a soft teal glow. The sheer age of the plants alone must have reached back to the dawn of time. As they walked tentatively into this new world, he could see buildings in the distance, the remnants of an entire city, left empty, to the devices of the plants that grew. And he could hear running water, a dark, secret river. A waterfall. Even the yellow stone road seemed to be glowing in the light, though Blackreach was a land of light and shadow, with the hidden corners seeming all the darker for the lack.

What seemed to be a crossbow was set up on the edge of the stairs on which they'd emerged. "What the hell does this do?" Sigrid asked, going up to the lever next to it. When she pulled it, a bolt exploded from the "crossbow" and flew forward at the little outpost, exploding in a blast of heat and light and metal parts from the centurion that had apparently been lying in wait for them. She jumped, for all the world like a guilty child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, and he couldn't help laughing, drawing a nasty scowl in his direction and growling hisses as Falmer lunged from the shadows. By now they had the rhythm down, both of them lunging for it at the same time, cutting it through.

"Careful," he said dryly, "You might impale _me_ on accident."

They continued on their way. For all that he had seen many strange things in Skyrim, this had to be both the strangest and the most awe inspiring. He could see that she was not unaffected by it, either, as they followed the path of the river further into the abyss. It even smelled different, the scent of rotted earth and certain scents even he couldn't identify. The mushrooms, perhaps, or maybe the strange magic of the place itself. He looked down into the river, part of which was misted over with fog. As the fog itself undulated across the surface of the water, it parted so that he could see the river was black as obsidian. _Not water I'd want to drink_, he thought. Above them glowed a golden metal orb, some cruel, strange, cold mockery of the sun.

"This place is insane," Sigrid said quietly, almost as if thinking aloud would ruin it. "Can you imagine? Eras ago the Dwemer _lived_ here."

"I wonder if it always looked like this," he said. "Can't imagine it's very practical going about your work when you can barely see three bloody feet in front of you."

Sigrid grinned at that complaint. "Maybe that's what happened to them," she said. "They're just lost in here somewhere."

He groaned. "No, don't say that. Knowing our bloody luck, it'll turn out to be _true_." As he looked away from her, across the cavern, he caught sight of a huge tower's spire rising above the rest of the city. "How much d'you want to bet that's the Tower of Mzark?"

"Whatever you want," she said, with a mockingly exaggerated leer, prompting another laugh as they followed the path towards the tower.

_I haven't laughed this much in months,_ he thought uncomfortably, as she tugged him along by the wrist. _Years. Maybe._ He distracted himself from this thought as they climbed the stairs of the tower, which stood atop a rushing river, the current quick and strong. Before them, only another brass door, leading to another lift which, after Sigrid pulled the lever, rose with a hiss of mechanisms and steam. It opened into a small room where another camp had been set up, but whoever the occupant of the sad bedroll and cooking spit had been, he or she was nowhere to be seen. He stalked around the room, carefully checking to make sure that no traps still existed. At the rear of the room, another door led into yet another room, this one filled with a huge mechanical apparatus.

"This is it!" Sigrid hissed excitedly, "This must have been what that crazy old badger was talking about. We're so close!"

"Aye," he said, as he went up the stone ramp to the platform that held the strange apparatus and a skeleton. Another journal informed them that he'd gone mad trying to figure out the puzzle, some time ago—probably his camp they had stumbled across. A very long time ago, considering the cool temperature of the room and the fact that all that remained of Drokt himself were bones. "'Five rings but only four buttons,'" he read, "'Most of 'em don't work most of the time anyhow. When the lights line up, more open, but they don't seem to he'—where are you going?"

But the woman, impatient as always, had already strode up the ramp to the series of five pillars, and placed the lexicon into the appropriate spot. With the creak of long-unused gears the contraption began to lower. Vilkas followed her, examining the pillars: four with buttons, and one with a glowing pattern that almost reminded him of the night sky, of stars. "Maybe we should wait—" he started, but it was too late. Sigrid had already started pressing the buttons, starting first with the one on the far right. With the touch of her finger, the machine sprang to life, the gyro-like metal bars fluttering up and down again. As he watched with a mixture of amusement and horror, she started to press the second button repeatedly, over and over again, until the third button lit up. When she pressed it, the green glass panels whirled in a delicate dance, further down. And then the fourth button lit, and she pressed _that_. With a groan and a hiss, a green glass chrysalis descended from the ceiling, the mini gyro whirling around it. And the capsule opened, revealing a scroll contained in a stone tube in the center.

"How the _hell_ did you know how to do that?" he demanded.

Sigrid glanced at him, sheepishly. "I just started pressing the buttons. I didn't know what I was doing at all."

"Oh," he said, rolling his eyes as they went back down the ramp, "Well, in that case, I'm glad to know you're a confident fuck up."

"Hey," she said, lifting her chin, and saying smugly, "_I'm_ the one holding a bloody Elder Scroll right now." She frowned at the lexicon. "Should we even take this with us?"

"Take it, but I'm not sure if we should give it back to Signus," Vilkas said. "I'm not totally sure that I trust him with whatever's in that box."

"You're right," Sigrid said with a sigh, as she jogged up the ramp to grab the lexicon too, and she stood there, looking down at him with eyes bright in the dark. "Now let's get the _hell_ out of here."

"Sigrid," he said, with feeling, "I don't think I have ever agreed with you more."

* * *

><p>Neither of them felt guilty about hiring a carriage as soon as they got into Windhelm. Not after the last few days they'd had. They took turns, one sleeping and one keeping watch in case the carriage was attacked. Thankfully, it was a quiet journey, and they bid the carriage goodbye at the Whiterun stables. As they approached the city gates, Sigrid turned her head to examine him. The messy chin-length black hair and scruffy beard; the hard line of his mouth and stubborn set of the jaw. The pale eyes ringed with thick black war paint, piercing from the shadowed outline. It was a face she had seen in many attitudes over these last few months: furious, arrogant, passionate. Still and pale, almost in death. A face she had despised at first, longed to smash with her fists until it was unrecognizable. But now he was no longer an antagonist. Instead, he'd become a comrade-in-arms. Shield-brother. She realized, looking at his face and those intensely familiar features, alert and searching the area around them even in repose, that she trusted him with her life.<p>

He caught her looking and raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Nothing," she muttered. _I trust you with my life. With my companions' lives, with the fact that I've got a bloody Elder Scroll in my back pack_, wasn't just the sort of conversation starter you could break out on a quiet morning. Instead, she bid him goodbye at the gates. "I'll be busy at Adrienne's forge all day if you have need of me."

It was time.

She was ready.

She finally had the materials, and now more than ever, it seemed appropriate to begin. After making sure that Adrienne wouldn't be too inconvenienced if she hovered outside of Warmaiden's all day, Sigrid took the dragon bones and scales that she had been collecting since the first dragon, some iron ingots and leather strips she'd saved, and went down to the forge. It would be a long process, and she was determined to finish it in the weekend.

First, she sanded down the bones, scrubbing them roughly to smooth out the ridges, until the entire white length was smooth to the touch. When she blew on it, dust flew up in a pale puff. By the time she finished sanding the winter sun had risen high over Whiterun, and despite the chilly air, the combined exertion and sunlight had her sweating, but she ignored it as she worked the bones over with beeswax, carefully rubbing it into the new smoothness. Once she had the basic materials prepared, she sat staring at them for a while. She did not know if it was even possible to do this: she had made many weapons and sets of basic iron and steel armor over the years, under many conditions. But she always worked in metal or leather, malleable beneath her hands. She could still feel the dragon-magic in the bones, knitted deep into the dry and polished ribs and vertebrae, and she wondered whether it wouldn't break instead of bending. Whether the magic in them wouldn't prevent her from working them into any semblance of shape, whether the bones themselves would fight back.

It was a problem to be approached from all angles. She spent a good few hours solely running her hands over the contours of the bones, laying them out in the position that made the most sense. It helped to think of it as a puzzle to be reassembled, piece by piece, with the leather and iron to hold it all together in the end. At the very least, years of crafting her own armor ensured that she had her own measurements memorized, making the process a little shorter. When she was satisfied that she had figured out the best way to do it, she set to work, hammering at the anvil and making occasional trips to the forge to heat up the iron that knit the entire thing together. It was a long process, for not only did she intend to make the breastplate, but gauntlets, boots, and a shield. Gradually, the armor began to come together, barbaric in its beauty, the vertebrae of the dragon forming a graduated chest plate, the toe joints attached to leather she'd tanned and stretched previously to form gauntlets. She hammered out the helmet, using the forge and a surreptitious _yol_ to fuse the scales together to form the base of it. Her arms rose and fell in time with the hammer and the anvil and with the beating of her heart. She had missed smithing. She had missed the challenge of her art.

The last step was to carve the bones. It was a habit she had picked up from her father, who had been a superstitious man to say the least. His leather armor, battered from the Great War, had been etched with his lucky symbols: old runes, and the animals he had spent his life before the war hunting. Bears and elk, wolves and horkers twined around his breastplate in an intricate design. _Using the beasts for good luck_ against_ the beasts, _he had said with a grin, _never hurts_. She had taken his words literally, beginning the long process of inking them into her skin after she had recovered from the betrayal of her first mercenary company. But even with such permanent "protection" she still liked to decorate her armor, as well. It never felt quite _right_ until she did, not after all of these years. And this dragon armor was going to be special. It wasn't just protection, it was a statement. A message for Alduin and his cohorts. _Fear me._

She carved freehand, a small, extremely sharp knife to scratch out the designs. She let her imagination fly: it was not a process that needed to be finished now. More runes and drawings could be added later, a running tally, a tale of her deeds. This time, instead of the old languages that were inked onto her arms and etched into the old steel plate she had lost in the ambush, she used dragon runes, scratching in the harsh lines for _lok vah koor_ and _yol_ and _fus_, twined with stylized etchings of dying dragons. All of the runes she knew how to use and some she'd only seen in books in High Hrothgar. After blowing away the bone dust, all that was left was to rub the etchings with black ink, so that it would set in the grooves, showing off the designs off in sharp black relief.

By the time she was done, the muscles of her arms and fingers and back were all screaming in protest. The sun had set and she had no idea how long she'd been working without stopping for a break, bent over the heat of the forge, and when she looked up, Adrienne stood behind her, staring at her handiwork with wide eyes and a low whistle. "I must say, I didn't think you were going to be able to pull it off."

Sigrid looked at the armor again, examining it with a critical eye, before she looked up, and grinned at the smith. "What can I say? I'm stubborn."

"Well, your patience paid off," the other woman said, shaking her head. "And if you ever have a set of that lying around to spare, Ulferth and I would be more than willing to take it off your hands."

"I'll have to think about it," Sigrid said. The armor was the fruit of her labor, the dragons she had killed, her history carved into their bones. She couldn't imagine simply selling off another set of it to some rich man who likely never picked up a sword in his own defense. "But anyway—thank you, Adrienne, for the use of your forge. If I can ever repay you…"

The woman waved her off. "You've helped me out enough over the time you've lived in Whiterun that one Sundas away from the forge isn't going to hurt the shop. And besides," she said with a smirk, "Ulferth was thankful to get me away for a time, I believe."

The two women bade their goodbyes, the sun long having slipped beneath the horizon, and Sigrid, though she was filthy from sweat and the forge, decided that she would try everything on to make sure it fit before heading back to Jorrvaskr for the night. She had a strange feeling in her stomach as she lifted the plate over her head, that it was meant to be this way. That she was meant to wear the bones of her enemies into battle against them, that she was fulfilling some small unknown piece of her destiny. The feeling roiled in her stomach and settled again as she set the helmet over her close-cropped hair and took a deep breath to steady her nerves. Since coming to Jorrvaskr, she had changed so much so that she almost could not recognize herself.

And striding off towards home, Sigrid had an uneasy thought.

Maybe change wasn't such a terrible thing after all.

* * *

><p>Vilkas found himself coming late to Jorrvaskr after a long day of dealing with Companions business, hunting down leads about the Silver Hand poking around in Riverwood. Dangerously close to Whiterun, especially after his current intelligence indicated that they were acting cautiously. Something had motivated them to action, he thought with a frown. However, by the time that he made the quick run to the sleepy hamlet, it turned out to be baseless rumor, or at the very lest if they had been there, they had not been flashing their silver around. Three travelers had passed through, Orgnar said, but he couldn't remember what they looked like.<p>

"Is Delphine around?" Vilkas asked, frustrated with the man's inability to remember simple details.

"Nay," Orgnar said, to Vilkas' surprise, "She left a few weeks ago. Said I was to hold down the inn but that she likely wouldna be back."

Defeated in his purpose, Vilkas made a few last questions around the small village, but found that the villagers all had seen nothing, which meant that they had either seen something and were frightened of reprisals, or that nothing had actually happened. With a contingent of Whiterun guards in place since the first sightings of the dragons, he wasn't totally convinced that it was the former. And so, with an uneasy feeling in his belly, he went back to Jorrvaskr.

There was a small crowd gathered in the main part of the mead hall when he returned, all of the Companions in residence close to an armored figure in their midst, a low hum of voices that continued as he walked forward, close enough to see that the figure was Sigrid, though dressed in a manner that he had never seen her. And now he knew what she had been doing at Avenicci's forge.

She was a picture of barbaric warrior pride, dressed in the polished and carved bones of the dragons, the plates of their bones protruding from her shoulders, engraved with what he recognized as dragon runes. The gauntlets did not quite meet the spaulders of her chest plate, and through them, he could see the blue inked vines and animals of her tattoos, almost as though her own veins had been replaced with them. With the helmet tucked under her arm, he could see her short hair, dark still with sweat, and her eyes, wide and excited. The bandit-scar cutting down her face shone in the firelight. _She looks like a legend_, he thought_._ She looked up at him as he entered, and the smile she aimed in his direction hit him like a punch in the gut. It was partially triumphant pride, but the other part was an expression he couldn't place. If he didn't know any better, if he didn't know _her_ any better, he would have said it was joy.

His mouth inexplicably dry, Vilkas rejoined his shield-siblings, all of whom were asking Sigrid about the armor, how long it had taken her to smith, what the process had entailed. Torvar half-jokingly but mostly-serious asked if he could have a piece. Ria merely cooed in admiration, muttering over and over again, "It's beautiful, it's beautiful!" And though she answered their questions readily, she rarely looked at them for long, her eyes constantly drifting back to focus on him, sometimes smiling, sometimes almost puzzled.

_You're treading on dangerous ground_, Vilkas thought uneasily. They had been treading on it for a long while, though.

He had the distinct impression that the ground had finally started to give way beneath them.


	25. Battles

**AN: **First of all, thanks to everyone who's left comments one way or another! I really appreciate all of the positive (and constructive) feedback. And also, there are now over 15,000 views which is sort of insane to me. So, once again, thanks for sticking around, reading, and enjoying. :D

* * *

><p><em>Glittering worm, thy hissing was great,<br>And hard didst show thy heart;  
>But hatred more have the sons of men<br>For him…_

—The Poetic Edda, from _Fafnismol_, translated by Henry Adams Bellows

* * *

><p>She woke early in the morning to the flicker of candlelight behind her eyelids, to find him already awake, still in bed with her. He pored over a letter, on his back and squinting up at the paper above him with a frown tugging the corner of his mouth down. A quill and pot of ink sat next to extra sheets of paper on the end table. "Morning," she said, still a bit sleepy, as she rolled onto her side. After the hearty welcome home they'd received, including several pointed questions from Kodlak about what they had been up to, there had been the usual amount of drinking. Vilkas retired to his room first, and Sigrid sneaked in after him after a period of time that seemed safe to do so. She still felt strange letting any of the others know that aspect of her life: though she trusted them, there were some things that felt more comfortable played close to the chest. And she was his secret, too.<p>

"Good to see you're finally awake," he drawled, one hand reaching out to run down her flank, the straight and narrow line of her hips, before coming to rest there. "Thought a few nights of sleeping in a proper bed spoiled you for early rising."

She shivered, just a bit, at the casual, warm touch of his fingers. She had never possessed much by way of feminine curves, and never regretted their lack. Her body was her body, her stock in trade, her pride and joy. Her muscled arms were her living and her broad shoulders her livelihood. No reason to be ashamed of it. Of them. "Oh, please," she said. "Just because I'm not awake at the bloody crack of dawn taking care of business like some people in this bed doesn't mean I'm a layabout."

He grinned at her then, looking for that brief second much younger than he normally did. "The fact that you're a layabout means you're a layabout. Don't you have some heroic quest to go rushing out upon? The hell are you still doing here, woman?"

She scowled, eyes narrowed, her weight propped up on her elbow. "Actually, I do," she said, her other hand lowering to stroke his cock slowly, surely. She knew what he liked, now, the way to use her callused palm to advantage.

"Oh really," he said, his eyes slipping shut with a low groan, though his voice continued in the sarcastic drawl: "Why am I unsurprised? Where are you off to this time? What ancient, mythical artifact are you stealing now?"

"I'm not stealing anything!" she said, offended, fingers tightening around him. "I'm going back to High Hrothgar. To read the Scroll at the _Tiid-Ahraan_—I mean, the Time-Wound."

At that, he folded the paper and set it back down onto the end table, and suddenly rolled over in the bed, pinning her there with his hands gripping her wrists, his entire weight heavy and warm atop her. His fingers pressed into the flesh of her wrist, bruising. Naked, she could feel the hard length of him pressing into her thigh, and despite herself, she felt warmth curling down from her belly, remembering other times they'd lain like this: the first day she'd come to Jorrvaskr and they'd fought, ending in exactly this position. She had wanted this even then, she thought, though he had looked at her only in anger. Now, though, his pale eyes weren't furious, they were… frustrated. "You're really going to do it, then," he said. "You're really going to go."

"I have to," she said, troubled. "If I don't learn this _thu'um_ Alduin will keep raising the dragons. Helgen and Snowsbranch will only be a small taste of what's to come. I've gotten this far, Vilkas… I can't stop now. I can't just give up."

"It could drive you mad as Septimus Signus," he said, searching her face with that intent gaze, as though if by looking at her carefully enough he could divine her thoughts. As if by memorizing her expression he could prevent her from returning, changed. His fingers tightened again around her wrists. "You could never be the same again."

"Don't worry," she said, with joking bravado. "I haven't gone mad yet, and I don't think a dusty old scroll could do it." She had never been particularly good at expressing her feelings. Especially not with words. Much easier to use her body, whether it was her fists or like now, her mouth on his, her breasts against his chest, her legs wrapping around his hips to pull him closer. And then as they moved so easily and familiarly from speaking to sex, she allowed herself to stop thinking, for if she took the time to consider it, it would feel too much like _goodbye_, too much like a wordless promise to return. Too much like his insistent hands and mouth and push of his body into hers was a brand, a promise of another sort.

Too much like questions that seemed too complicated for answers.

* * *

><p>And so she found herself back on the road to Ivarstead, dressed in the new armor for the first time. It felt right on her body, heavier than steel but more solid. The faint hum of the magic in the dragon's bones warmed her skin as she ran. Sigrid pushed herself as hard as she could on the journey, spending most of it in flight, running at full speed until her body couldn't take it anymore, lungs burning and legs weak. Even then, she forced herself to continue walking, until she thought that her legs might give out from under her. It had been a long time since forced marches in the night, since the desperation of some of the years before she found her way back to Skyrim. But her body remembered, and the hidden reserves of strength that it possessed fuelled her.<p>

Even pushing herself to her absolute limits, however, she was unable to put that strange goodbye from her mind. He was truly, seriously worried she might lose her mind. That she might return changed and broken—or worse, dead. She remembered, too, the feeling of her stomach falling through the earth as she had knelt beside his unconscious body in the lighthouse abyss, knowing that had he died everything would have changed. Such a feeling was a weakness, one she had spent many years avoiding indulging since the destruction of Saemund's band of mercenaries beneath the blade of a traitor's sword. Such a feeling meant that you were likely to make a stupid mistake in battle and get yourself killed, or others. Easier not to remain tied down, easier for her heart to remain free and roving. Even with friendships she kept aloof, for she never knew when she would be called upon to switch sides, whether her comrade would switch sides based on a better offer. It had happened before, with disastrous results, and could easily happen again. But Jorrvaskr had become a web of friendships, connections, from which it was difficult to extricate herself. Skjor had once told her that he was fond of the Companions because they had become his family, and in a way, she understood what he meant. It wasn't just her fear of being unable to save Vilkas, it would be an equal weight of guilt upon her shoulders if Farkas had been slain by the Silver Hand in Dustman's Cairn, or if her lessons failed to give Ria the extra edge she needed in a battle.

Somehow, at some point, she had started _caring_ about the Companions.

_You bloody idiot._

Of course, her idiocy had spread far beyond them. Here she was, beginning yet another trek of seven thousand steps up a mountainside to read a scroll that could drive her mad at a wound in time at the tip of the highest peak in the country. Had she told her self of a year previous that this is where the day would find her, past-Sigrid would have laughed hard enough to vomit. Her mood so rapidly descended towards foul that she didn't even think twice about Shouting the lunging wolves off the side of the mountain, peering over the edge to watch their tiny bodies careening to smash into the rocks below. "Good bloody riddance," she muttered to herself, waiting for the distant yelp and crash before trudging up the rest of the way, feeling immensely conscious of the weight of the Elder Scroll slung in the pack over her shoulders. By the end of her trek the snow had started to fall and, shivering, she jogged up the steps to High Hrothgar. This time the gates did not seem quite so foreboding, though she knew what waited for her at the tip of the Throat of the World.

"_Dovahkiin,_" Arngeir greeted her, when she slipped through the door, shutting it behind her.

"Good day, Master Arngeir," Sigrid responded politely. The rest of the Greybeards went about their business, barely acknowledging her. She had grown used to them not speaking on her visits, but the silence of High Hrothgar rose around her like a tomb. Jarl Balgruuf's assessment of it as a peaceful place had been correct, but sometimes it felt like the peacefulness of a cemetery rather than a temple.

"Break bread with us," Arngeir offered. "It is but a humble meal, but welcome after your journey."

"Yes," she said. "Thank you." The Greybeards' fare was simple: hearty oats with dried fruit sliced into it, and rough black bread, by now quite stale. Weak tea, unsweetened. It was clear they relied on stored supplies for their food, but it was warm and filling and exactly what she needed after the journey. She set her helmet on the floor but did not remove the chestplate, feeling a little silly as she sat opposite the old man in his rough cotton robes.

Arngeir was not much of a conversationalist, but he looked at her shrewdly over the edge of his teacup. "To see you so soon after your meeting with Paarthurnax—I assume you have found what you seek, Dragonborn?"

"Aye," she said. "The Elder Scroll, retrieved from the depths of Blackreach."

Arngeir set the cup down with a rattle of ceramic against stone, and sighed. "To think I should live to see the end of days…" the old man muttered. "The turning of this age." He looked up again and met her eyes above the food. "Are you sure you make the correct decision, Dragonborn? We bow, as always, to the wisdom of Paarthurnax, but surely…" He trailed off, uncertain. "Surely you must consider that this world might have been meant to end. That by reopening the rend in time, that you might doom this age to a worse fate than it might have met had the _Tiid-Ahraan_ remained closed, had Alduin been allowed to swallow the world as destiny says he shall."

"I have to," Sigrid said, feeling a little sheepish that she'd been scraping her spoon against the wall of the bowl to get the last of the oatmeal while he'd been discussing a topic of such importance. "I can't go along with the idea that the world is just meant to end. Not like this. Not now, Arngeir. It's not time; it's not _right_. And so I have to try—come hell or high water, I have to try."

He watched her in silence, neither the Master nor the student willing to look away first. Finally, he nodded, a slow movement, though his eyes did not lower from her face. "You have made your choice. The Greybeards will not stand in your way. I only hope you make the correct decision, _Dovahkiin_." They stood, now, both finished with the meal, and Arngeir took her hands in his—his fingers were cold, the skin of them wrinkled and soft with age, but there was strength in his grip. "Breath and focus," he said, the same blessing that Paarthurnax had given: _su'um ahrk morah._

"Thank you," Sigrid replied, for she did not know what else to say. "Gods-speed to you too, Master Arngeir." And again donning her helmet, she set out once more for the Throat of the World, where the _Tiid-Ahraan _awaited her.

* * *

><p>After Sigrid left in the morning, Vilkas rolled out of the bed and scratched his chest absentmindedly as he dressed for the day. Although the informational letter he had received from Heddic Bog-Trotter, apparently terrified into submission, had given him much to consider, he found himself preoccupied, thinking of the woman journeying yet again to the Throat of the World; of the journey they had shared but a few days before, and the strange, fierce goodbye.<p>

As he stalked out of his room towards the main hall, he thought of the woman's fierce battle-joy, her recklessness. She fought viciously and mercilessly, with a savage efficiency. She taunted her enemies and took pleasure in their demise. She was skittish and suspicious and untrusting, given to running away whenever something became too emotionally complex. She was apt to settle a disagreement with her fists or her sword. She viewed his intense loyalty and sense of honor with bemusement. She was proud to a fault, and disliked having to rely on anyone else for help, even on him. And yet: he knew that she cared deeply for men and women she'd never met before, in the same way he cared for his shield-siblings. A mercenary with no heart would not have ventured into the depths of the lighthouse to try and find survivors. She had her own code of honor. Despite the scarred, rough body, her hands could be gentle in the night. She might sardonically declaim the role of a hero, but she had taken on the mantle for herself with a steely determination that impressed him all the more for knowing her true reluctance. She had a dry sense of humor that lightened the horror of battle. And in bed, too, she was that same combination of aggression and generosity and humor: he had never thought a woman laughing during sex would affect him in such a way. Most worrisome of all, he could tell that while she did not fear her own death, after the terrible night in the Frostflow Lighthouse, she feared _his_. This in itself was dangerous.

And worse yet, he knew exactly the way she felt, because the echo of that feeling gripped his chest, behind the ribs. Thinking of her going into battle alone, thinking of her dying alone beneath the claws of a dragon or the sword of a Stormcloak chilled the blood in his veins. And he knew that one day it would happen and he would not be there to save her, and that thought haunted his dreams at night, slipping in amongst his usual nightmares of Hircine and the Hunt. He thought of Aela, and her grief at the loss of Skjor—more than just a shield-brother to her, always. He had become her anchor to the world, and now he was gone. Always solitary, she had almost totally withdrawn, spending most of her time in the wilds, a feral creature, wrecking her revenge but destroying herself. Even when she returned, there was a hollowness behind her eyes that could not be assuaged, no matter how she smiled and spoke with the rest of them.

As he mulled over all of these strange thoughts and new emotions, he barely even noticed that his brother had taken a seat next to him, frowning curiously at him. "Mead not sitting well?" Farkas asked. "You _are_ getting old…"

Vilkas frowned at him, leveling the _look_ that he had often given his younger sibling over the years: the look that said that fisticuffs were not far off if this strand of conversation continued. "If I'm getting old, so are you."

"Ah," Farkas replied. "But I can still hold my ale. And you're the older brother, after all. Shameful, that is."

Vilkas ignored him, served himself from the covered trays that Tilma had set out that morning, though strangely, he did not have much of an appetite. When he looked up again, Farkas was still watching him with a puzzled frown on his face. "_Nothing is wrong_, ice-brain," he said sharply. "So you can stop nosing around thinking you'll figure it out."

"All right," he said, and helped himself to breakfast, destroying the food with as hearty an appetite as ever. After he was finished, he poured himself a mug of coffee with a happy sigh, tipping his chair back and looking sideways at his brother again, his bland eyes completely and totally innocent. "You haven't been the same since coming back from Windhelm, and I don't think it's 'cos of memories."

Vilkas grunted, annoyed. When Farkas got his nose on a scent he could be as tenacious and frustrating as Aela, in many ways worse. Aela, at least, was solitary, but when Farkas got an idea into his head he never forgot it until he got an answer, bringing it up at suspiciously inconvenient times. Vilkas had the sinking suspicion that if he let it go, somehow, the topic would be broached when Kodlak or Vignar was in the room. That would be all he needed, the Harbinger hearing him questioned about mooning around like an adolescent boy rather than acting as the bloody Master of Arms. "There is a tension between… duty and emotion. Between far too many bloody things." The call of the blood and Kodlak's wishes; his own common sense and his gut. His mind and his heart.

"Huh?" Farkas said, eyeing him as if he had suddenly grown an extra head from his shoulder.

"You wanted to know what's wrong, that's what's wrong," Vilkas said dryly. "It doesn't make any damn sense to me, either."

"I dunno," Farkas said slowly. "It's not so hard. Everyone's got some kind of thing that's important to them above all else. Sometimes you just don't realize that the two things go together after all. Or that they're important in the same way. Two things that mean that much… you just have to be patient and think about it until it makes sense."

Vilkas sighed. For all that his brother was considered slow, he had an unusual way of looking at the world; Vilkas had always known that Farkas was not as stupid as he sometimes sounded. He might not know many words or have any interest in books, but he had an innate sort of common sense when it came to people and complex situations. "You sound like you're speaking from experience."

"Oh, aye," Farkas said with a grin. "Took me long enough to wear the widow down. Just had to show her I cared as much for her girl as I did for her to do it. And I do, she's a good girl. Just sayin' that sometimes it's easy not to see that sort o' thing."

"Widow—wait, you mean—Carlotta Valentina?"

"Yes," his brother said, not a little smugly, and perhaps, for good reason. The woman was notorious both from the attention she received from enamored Whiterun suitors, her quick temper when shutting them down, and her determination not to allow a man to come between her and her daughter. "As I said, you just need to realize that sometimes two things can work together even when you think they got nothing to do with each other." The bland gaze flicked over his face. "So keep _that_ in mind, aye?"

"Enough of that," he replied gruffly, realizing yet again that though he and his brother were close as shield-siblings, Farkas had a whole other world of which he had remained unaware, too wrapped up in his own struggles with the blood to notice. He resolved that, once all of these damn messes were properly straightened out, that he would be the elder brother that Farkas deserved. If he lived through the coming months. "We've got business to consider. Ready yourself. You're coming with Aela and I today."

"Where are we going?"

And Vilkas smiled, though there was no humor in it. "The Hall of the Vigilant. We're going to sever the last new link in the chain that the Silver Hand has been forging here in Skyrim."

* * *

><p>After the skies cleared and revealed the Throat of the World once more, Paarthurnax crouched atop the <em>rotmulaag<em>, framed against the mid-morning sun. Something about the way he held himself reminded her of a frightened cat, his body and wings puffed out, ready to lunge at the slightest provocation. As though he could scent the magic in the air, the way that the world seemed to warp just ever so slightly wrong around the Elder Scroll. "You have it—the_ Kel_—the Elder Scroll. _Tiid kreh… qalos_. Time shudders at its touch. There is no question—you are doom driven," the dragon murmured.

Sigrid swallowed, hard. _Doom-driven_. Arngeir's troubled ambivalence, and now Paarthurnax's seeming lack of confidence made her doubt, momentarily, the wisdom of the venture. And then she hardened her nerves: she had never gotten anywhere by doubting herself. From the very first, she had always fought opponents who were bigger than her, stronger than her. It had never stopped her before. If this was to be the first time, than so be it. "I'm only driven to end this. That's all."

"_Kogaan Akatosh_. The very bones of the earth are at your disposal," Paarthurnax replied, jerking his long neck in a surprisingly graceless motion. If a dragon could be tensed with nerves, Paarthurnax was. "Go then. Fulfill your destiny. Take the Scroll to the Time-Wound. Do not delay. Alduin will be coming. He cannot miss the signs."

"_Geh_, Paarthurnax," she said, and walked to the place where the air shimmered like a fever dream. She held out her hand, and felt the soupy texture of the wound, almost as if she could shape it beneath her fingers. But she could not afford delay, not now. She could still feel the Scroll heavy over her shoulders, and as she shifted her pack to take it out, it felt even heavier, if such a thing were possible. Drawing a deep breath, Sigrid unrolled the Scroll from its case. Before she looked down, she found herself praying to Talos for the first time in years, though the irony of it, here at the _Tiid-Ahraan_, furthering her own destiny as _Dovahkiin_, did not escape her. She prayed anyway. _Let me get through this with my mind intact. Please. Please._

"Hurry, _Dovahkiin!_" Paarthurnax urged her, "Alduin will be coming."

And Sigrid looked down.

At first, the Scroll seemed an incomprehensible jumble, a white, glowing blueprint that swirled and shimmered with the same fathomless magic that had split the very fabric of time. The light was so bright that she feared she would go blind, and her skull felt as though it expanded, as though it could crack like an egg at the slightest tap. Sigrid squinted against the light, forcing herself to concentrate, to focus her eyes on the patterns before her, a keening whine filling her ears. And suddenly, everything was bathed in a bloody orange glow and she realized as she saw the tiny figures before her that she was looking at the Throat of the World as it had appeared in the Merethic Era. She was a disembodied eye, floating apart from the war that raged around her. Above, dragons flew, howling through the air, more dragons in one place than she had ever seen before, and she shuddered instinctively at their terrible beauty.

Below, two figures strode through the glow, a man and a woman who reminded her, strangely, of Aela the Huntress. "Gormlaith!" the man said, his one remaining eye wide, sweating heavily. "We're running out of time! The battle—" He never finished his sentence, for a huge dragon swooped from the air, landing with a familiar heavy _whump_ of displaced air. If Sigrid reached out, she could almost touch him, but her hand cut through his skin as though only the air remained before her.

"_Daar sul thur se Alduin yokrii_," the dragon said, in an accent that was almost recognizably Nord, but something ancient beyond even her imagining. "Today Alduin's lordship will be restored! But I honor your courage," the dragon said mockingly, and she could have sworn that one of its eyebrow ridges had raised in a draconic approximation of a smirk. "_Krif voth akrhin_. Die now, in vain."

As Sigrid watched, the woman—Gormlaith—lunged for the dragon, sword drawn. She found herself critiquing the moves: as the dragon snapped its huge jaws at her, and she pivoted, the sword taking a chunk of the dragon's jaw, leaving it bloody and gaping; Gormlaith threw herself at the dragon's head, balanced precariously on its skull as the beast thrashed around in an attempt to throw her off, Gormlaith's sword flashing bright in the strange light of the time-wound as she drove it through the beast's skull. "Know that Gormlaith sent you down to _death!_" And she laughed, a fell sound, bloodthirsty and self-satisfied. "Hakon!" the woman greeted the one-eyed man, "A glorious day, is it not?"

"Have you no thought beyond the blooding of your blade?" the man growled.

"What else is there?" Gormlaith replied, still laughing, filled with bravado, and Sigrid shivered. She had said much the same thing. Thought much the same thing, those years in the past. _There is more beyond the blooding of the blade,_ she thought, almost wonderingly. _But in the end, can I avoid it? Can I really be more than just a sword, just a weapon? That's all I've been my entire life. To think you can be anything more is to invite your doom._

And she watched and listened as the heroes of old conferenced before her, worried and hopeful. The war was not going well; Alduin and his allies had taken their toll amongst the humans, and their desperate plan would not work unless he rose to the bait and joined them on the Throat of the World. She began to get a sense of these mythic heroes: Gormlaith, fierce and proud and exactly as she had been those first few years with Saemund's merry men, so sure of her power and the glory she would win; Hakon, older, blooded long-ago, and more realistic. And Felldir the Old, dressed in what seemed to be a Greybeard's robes, though he was like no other Greybeard she had met. A man of war where they were men of peace. His powerful voice carried on the air, confident and strong. This was a warrior, though not in the manner of Gormlaith. This was a man who had seen much blood and horror, and who had made a decision that would reverberate through time. _Alduin cannot be slain like a lesser dragon_, he'd said, _he is beyond our strength. Which is why I brought the Elder Scroll_. This news shocked Hakon and Gormlaith, neither of whom seemed happy about Felldir's decision. As they argued, Sigrid felt the shift in the air, the weight.

Alduin landed before her, the mad glow of his yellow eyes visible even through the haze of time. "_Meyye!_" he growled, "_Tahrodiis aanne!_ _Him hinde pah liiv! Zu'u hin daan!"_ The dragon moved slowly forward, unhurried, unafraid. The blood of the heroes he had already slain this day—no, that day, so many years in the past—stained his muzzle, his teeth.

And the three heroes of old opened their mouths and Shouted: _JOOR ZAH FRUL_.

It was not the same as touching the Word Wall. The knowledge grabbed her, filled her. Arngeir and Paarthurnax had not exaggerated when they had said that Dragonrend was a _thu'um_ of hatred. The Words normally burned with cold, a fiery ice. Dragonrend was all fire, all sour hatred and years of suffering, the metallic salt of old blood. _Mortal. Finite. Temporary. _The Words echoed around in her head, and with them all of the emotion that had gone into their creation. Her gorge rose, and for a moment she feared that she would vomit into the _Tiid-Ahraan_. _I wonder what effect _that _would have on history_, Sigrid thought wryly, and then her eyes widened as she saw the result of that fury concentrated into words: glowing blue light surrounded Alduin, bringing the huge hulking frame to the ground, even as the dragon thrashed against the magical bonds, screaming of treachery and promising to put his teeth to… _Paarthurnax's_ neck?

Alduin might have been down but he was not giving up yet. Although he could not fly, his mighty neck snaked out as the heroes rushed him, snapping and lunging for them. Even as her blade drove for Alduin's scaled skin, Gormlaith ventured too close: the cruel jaws grabbed her between their vise-like grip and she was shaken like a dog with a rat. Sigrid could hear the crunch of teeth on bone, the rush of blood that followed, the sickening thump of one half of her body hitting the ice while the other disappeared down Alduin's gaping maw. Hakon's scream of rage and pain echoed, and she shuddered, straining forward as if she could somehow change the fate of time. _If Gormlaith, brave and golden and with the power of Dragonrend behind her had fallen, what chance had she?_ Sigrid watched in a daze as Hakon and Felldir scrambled to read the _Kel_ before Alduin took to the wing once more, the words echoing in her skull:

_By words with older bones than your own we break your perch on this age and send you out!_

Glowing green light surrounded Alduin's frame, cutting through that red glow as he shrieked in pain and defiance, the huge frame shrinking and eventually vanishing with a sound of the wind howling into the space he left behind. Panting, the heroes stared at each other wide-eyed. _May the spirits have mercy on our souls_, Felldir muttered, and Sigrid found herself agreeing.

And then the world was filled with light, and she was thrown forward in time once more.

For several long moments she feared she might actually have gone blind. The light did not fade, the concentric patterns of the Elder Scroll still burning before her eyes, as though she had stared into the sun for too long. She didn't need her eyes, however, to hear the roar of the dragon and feel the weight of Alduin at the Throat of the World, the blistering heat that radiated from his body, the faint smell of sulfur and blood that exhaled with his every breath. "_Bakloki nahkip sillsejoor_," Alduin growled, as Sigrid's field vision slowly darkened, until she could see again. Alduin hovered in the air before her, the beating of his great wings sending gusts of wind that almost knocked her to her knees. "My belly is full of the souls of your fellow mortals, _Dovahkiin!_ Die now, and await your fate in Sovngarde!"

She struggled against the wind to draw her sword, unable to resist the chance to taunt the World-Eater himself. When would she ever have such an opportunity again? "Well, maybe you should eat less souls, you bloody great overgrown lizard, you're fatter'n a southern lord at a midwinter feast—"

"_Lost funt_! You are too late, Alduin!" Paarthurnax cut in, shooting Sigrid a murderous look. "_Dovahkiin! _Use Dragonrend, if you know it!" And with that, the muscles of Paarthurnax's legs bunched, and he pushed himself into the air, flying at Alduin with an uncharacteristically militant leap, and the air was now a churning mass of dragon scales and claws and _thu'um_, the roar of battle joined.

"_Shit_," Sigrid swore, suddenly frozen. If she used Dragonrend and accidentally caught Paarthurnax in its power, would she kill him? Harm him? But she had to do something—she couldn't let him fight Alduin alone; he was so obviously old—with his missing teeth and tattered wings—that it seemed almost comical that he would even try to fight alongside her. And so, at the climactic battle at the Throat of the World, she found herself running in circles, trying to find an angle to stand where the full force of Dragonrend would catch only Alduin. As she ran, the battle above her raged, with Paarthurnax receiving the brunt of Alduin's rage. "Paarthurnax is weak! I am strong! _Dovahkiin, hin kah fen kos bonaar!"_

"He is too strong on the wing!" Paarthurnax said, "Bring him to _gol _with Dragonrend!"

Alduin had Shouted something else and now the sky filled with fire, burning meteors streaking towards the ground around her and exploding in bursts of flame and tiny shards of white-hot rock that burned her skin. She could hear her heart in her ears, the steady thud drowning out the shrieks and roars above, even the explosions, and she realized that she had frozen in place. _Stop thinking. Start fighting,_ she commanded herself, and she took a deep breath, remembering the all-consuming fury and hatred that had rushed through her as she absorbed the meaning of the words of Dragonrend, drew on them and concentrated until she could feel the churning of it in her stomach, and she Shouted.

"_Joor zah frul!"_

And the words exploded from her lips in a burst of blue light, and with it, all of the emotion of the words, burning her throat on the way out in a way that _yol_ had never done. It enveloped Alduin, and the huge black frame came crashing to earth, grounded and furious. "My teeth to your neck, _Dovahkiin!"_ he growled, straining against the magical binds, lunging forward to try and snap her in two as he had done to Gormlaith. Sigrid threw herself to the side, catching Alduin on the very tip of the nose as she escaped his sharp rows of teeth.

"Now, Dovahkiin! Now he is vulnerable!" Paarthurnax urged.

Though she had fought dragons before, fighting Alduin was like nothing she had yet experienced. He was larger than the others, yes, but there was a supernatural weight to his limbs as he fought the force of Dragonrend, as he slammed Sigrid to the ground with a cursory clip of his wings. She rolled to her feet again, aching all over, and wondered whether Gormlaith had felt the sinking suspicion that she might have been in over her head as she saw Alduin's maw bearing down on her, and saw the light beginning to fade. "_Joor zah frul!"_ she screamed again, and Alduin roared in fury as she lashed out with sword and shield. Every slam of the metal into the dragon's scales jolted up her arms, but she continued slamming the blade into his side with a relentless fury, constantly dodging and running, still slashing the sword down, as Alduin's long neck lashed sideways. She bled from scrapes on her arms and face from being knocked repeatedly to the ground, from burns from the meteors that still exploded all around her in fiery bursts, but she could not give in. would not give in. As he came for her again, she jammed the shield up into his jaw and the sword into his eye. With a roar of rage and pain, Alduin lashed out with his huge, clawed foot, knocking her to the ground again, knocking the air from her lungs, and it remained. From experience she knew that she had probably broken a rib. The light faded and she could not call up the strength for Dragonrend.

"_Meyz mul, Dovahkiin_," he growled. "You have become strong. But I am _Al-Du-In_, firstborn of Akatosh! _Mulaagi zok lot!_ I cannot be slain here, by you or anyone else! You cannot prevail against me! I will outlast you… _mortal_." He spat out the last word like a curse. And, still bloody, his ruined eye gushing fluid, he took to the wing. The fires faded and the sky gradually returned to its usual blue, but the burning embers around her still flared, and her blood stained the ice, and she knew then that she had failed.

"_Lot krongrah,_" Paarthurnax rumbled, as he moved slowly across the ice towards her, where she still lay sprawled on the ground. "You truly have the Voice of a _dovah_. Alduin's allies will think twice after this victory."

The dull ache of the rib turned to a sharp, stabbing pain whenever she breathed too hard, and Sigrid inched towards her pack, which had fallen to the ground during the fight. She hoped the remaining healing potions from Kraldar were still unbroken, for there was no way she'd be able to make the trek down from the Throat in her current condition. "It wasn't really a victory," she managed to grit out, though both breathing and talking caused pain to lance sharply through her lungs. "Since Alduin escaped."

"_Ni liivrah hin moro_," Paarthurnax said, one gnarled foot reaching out to nudge her pack closer to her. "True, this is not the final _krongrah_—victory. But not even the heroes of old were able to defeat Alduin in open battle. Alduin always was _pahlok_—arrogant—in his power. _Uzbahgar paar_. He took domination as his birthright. But this blooding should shake the loyalty of the _dov_ who serve him."

Paarthurnax's cloudy eyes watched her as she fumbled inside the contents of the pack, taking one of the potions and drinking it, slowly, trying not to gag at the sickly sweet taste mixing with the blood in her mouth. Just as slowly, the pain began to recede. "Paarthurnax…" she said, "When I read the _Kel_, Alduin said something about _treacherous Paarthurnax._ Why would he have—felt betrayed by you?"

A dragon's laugh was a strange thing; even the humor of it was tempered by the deep-voiced roar of the ages. "I had wondered, _Dovahkiin_, when you would ask. Alduin is my _zeymah_, my brother, the blood of my blood. The elder of us two."

"Your _brother_?"

"_Geh, Dovahkiin_," Paarthurnax said. "When we were young, I was his greatest _kendov_ and he my _konahrik,_ and I fought at his side in many _grahhe_. Mortal blood flowed when we took to the _lok_… Those were dark times, until _Kaan_ showed me the true horror of my ways and convinced me to turn to the side of the _joorre_. I taught the Nords to use the _thu'um_, and for that, Alduin named me _tahrodiis_."

"You're his brother, and you fought at his side?" Sigrid said, and suddenly his hesitance to tell her more about Dragonrend cast itself in a sinister new light. "How can I trust you now? How do I know you won't turn on me when this is all done?"

Paarthurnax exhaled, the golden eyes narrowing. "You say this to me, _Dovahkiin?_ You, who come to me clad in the _qethhe _of my _zeymahhe_ and _briinahhe_?"

Sigrid looked down at the dragon bone armor, and frowned, a hot rush of shame flooding her. In her mind she had not classed Paarthurnax with the other dragons; in a way she had identified him as a fatherly sort of figure, looking beyond the scales and the soul of the _dov_. She had not thought how she would have felt, had someone come to her home dressed in the bones of another human being. She had only thought of killing monsters, striking fear into them. _But Paarthurnax isn't a monster—is he? _"You're right," she muttered, wishing she had the strength to pick herself off of the ground. The healing potions had knitted the bones of her rib together, and closed the bloody gashes, but she was still exhausted from the battle with the world eater. "I'm sorry."

"Do not apologize," the dragon said. "We are at war, and I know the reason for what you do. _Faas_. It is a wise act that you play. But I could easily say the same: how may I trust that you will not put me to the blade when you are finished with Alduin? That you will see only _dovah _then, a monster to eradicate, and not Paarthurnax, he of the Way of the Voice?"

"I wouldn't do that!" she exclaimed, offended. "I wouldn't betray you, I do not hold my honor so cheaply."

"As I would not betray you, _briinah._ Yet you are wise not to trust _me_," Paarthurnax continued. "_Onikaan ni ov—_I would not trust another _dovah_."

"Why wouldn't you?" Sigrid asked. Strangely, the more she talked with Paarthurnax, the better she understood him, as though his conversational use of the language of the _dov_ awakened some echoing memory in the back of her brain.

"_Dov wahlaan fah rel_. We were made to dominate. The will to power is in our blood. You feel it in yourself, do you not?" Paarthurnax asked, recalling their earlier conversation about her own fears. If she didn't know any better, she would have sworn that one of his eyebrow ridges had raised, questioningly. "I can be trusted. I know this. But you did not, or do not. _Onikaan no ov dovah_: it is always wise to mistrust a _dovah_. I have overcome my nature only through meditation and long study of the Way of the Voice. No day goes by where I am not tempted to return to my inborn nature. _Zin krif horvut se suleyk_. I forget you are so young. Barely out of the egg. What is better, _briinah_—to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"

"It's taken you all these years to reach this point?" Sigrid asked, finally pulling herself to her feet. Paarthurnax's great head filled her vision, so close that she could feel the warmth of the breath through his nostrils, as close as Alduin had been to snapping her in half with his vicious fangs. But despite what he had just told her, about the temptation to return to his nature, she was not afraid. "To become this—this wise?" Impulsively, she reached out to him, her bruised hand stroking over the dragon's face, feeling the rough, scarred scales, beaten down by time. Not the face of a monster: the face of a creature who had overcome his nature, who had years of wisdom she could never begin to fathom. In that moment she felt very small and young and ignorant.

"_Bokke_," the dragon said quietly. "It is never easy, to overcome one's nature, especially not for the _dov_. We are stubborn, set in our ways. As you are."

Sigrid took a deep breath, feeling the cold of the very tip of the mountain through both the bones she wore and into her own. "All right. So we've established that I can trust you. Or that I need to trust you. And I still need to find out where Alduin went if I'm going to destroy him once and for all."

"Always a _daal_ to business with you, _briinah_," Paarthurnax said wryly, and lowered his head, the layered lids of his eyes flipping shut as he considered the problem before them. "Yes… one of his allies could tell us. _Motmahus_… But it will not be so easy to… convince one of them to betray him. Perhaps the _horvutahsejun_—the palace in Whiterun… Dragonsreach. It was originally built to house a captive _dovah_. A fine place to trap one of Alduin's allies, hmmm?"

"Somehow, I doubt that Jarl Balgruuf would think so…" Sigrid said, groaning under her breath. Every time it seemed as though she was closer to being able to find the solution to her problems, more of them sprouted from the stump.

"Hmm, yes," Paarthurnax said, sounding surprisingly unconcerned. "But your _su'um_ is strong. I do not doubt that you can convince him of the need."

"Paarthurnax?"

"Yes?"

"If I live through this… may I come back to the Throat? For _tinvaak?_"

That surprised a chuckle from him, almost a wheeze. "_Geh, briinah_. It would be my pleasure."

"Thank you," Sigrid said, and adjusted her armor. The way down to the road seemed very long just then, but it was a road she must walk again and again, until Alduin's soul was devoured. "_Su'um ahrk morah_, Paarthurnax."

She could have sworn he smiled, just barely. "_Su'um ahrk morah_, _Dovahkiin_."

* * *

><p>Running through the wilds of Skyrim with Farkas and Aela at his side reminded him of nothing so much as his childhood, when they'd all been about thirteen winters, the year that Aela had left her father's home in the woods and come to Jorrvaskr to take her dead mother's place in the Companions. Both brothers had been instantly captivated by her, and then terrified of her, for when displeased she fought with the fury of a wildcat, and had a wickedly inventive mind for pranks that ended in either humiliation, or great pain. They had very soon learned to keep on her good side. <em>Some things change, some things don't<em>, Vilkas thought, remembering the battle for dominance on the plains of Whiterun. He had not spoken much to her since it had happened, and the chance for the three of them, childhood friends and shield-siblings for decades, to regain their trust and companionship warmed his heart.

"Kodlak's still searching for his cure, hmm?" Aela asked, as they set out down the road, keeping a brisk pace for the Pale.

"He says he's close," Vilkas replied.

Aela merely grunted.

"You still won't go along with him, Aela?" Farkas asked. "I don't like it, all the arguing."

"Oh, Farkas," she said. "The beast-blood is who I _am_. I'm not giving it up, not even for Kodlak. Not even for Sovngarde. I'll join my mother in the hunting grounds." The unspoken words _and Skjor_ lingered in the air.

"It's not who I am," Farkas said, frowning.

"And that's why we're different, ice-brains," Aela said sharply. "Thankfully. I couldn't deal with all your bloody hair and the space between your ears!"

"Aela," Vilkas said, a little warningly.

She sniffed; and shook her head. And the Companions now ran in silence.

A little outside of Rorikstead, with Farkas having taken the lead to scout ahead, as a dragon had been rumored to be sighted around the little hamlet in the last week, she spoke again. "I've not been sure how to speak to you two, since Skjor is gone." It was the closest to an apology that they would get; even to admit this much must have been difficult for her.

"You don't need to explain, Aela," Vilkas replied. "We all can only do the best we can. You remember how I acted when Kodlak came to us with this mad scheme in the first place, and we hadn't even… lost anyone. It's not easy to accept."

"I won't accept it," Aela replied. "Not for me."

"At least we're united in the idea that the Silver Hand need to be stopped," Vilkas said dryly.

"Yes," Aela said, with a sharp laugh. "It's always a common ground we have—a love of killing. You and I, at least. Farkas…"

"Loves _fighting_," Vilkas said, shaking his head. "But never killing." Even as a child, Farkas had always been the one to bring home wounded baby birds that had fallen from the nest, to save smaller children from the bullies, and say the right thing at the right time. Even then, Vilkas had fought to wound rather than to stop a fight. Once he had beaten Avulstein Gray-Mane bloody after the older boy had said that the twins' mother had been a nameless whore, and he had remained silent when Skjor whipped him for it, refusing to apologize. Funny how some things never did change, no matter how old he got.

"Tell me more about the Vigilants," Aela said. "The plans I took from Faldar's Tooth didn't mention them, only that the Hand was scaling back their operations in light of mine and Sigrid's efforts." A smug, self-satisfied smile tilted her full lips up.

"An informant says they've been funding and—_encouraging—_the Silver Hand, much like Bern Golden-Fingers was providing them with hard gold for the silver weapons. The Hand were never much more than bandits before they got involved, as we've learned. We're going to convince them to keep their hands to themselves."

"I doubt they'll listen," Aela said, shrugging. "We're all evil daedra worshippers to them. Worthy only of a quick eradication."

"Then we're just going to have to send a harder message," Vilkas said, his mouth set in a hard line. "I've no patience left for games. We have better things to worry about than a bunch of bandits and a crowd of religious fanatics in robes nipping at our heels. Believe me when I say this will be the end."

Farkas had jogged back towards them to rejoin their group. "What'd I miss, huh?" he asked with a frown.

"Nothing," Aela said, and smiled. "Come, Farkas, I'll race you to the Pale."

He had timed the journey carefully so that they would arrive at the Hall of the Vigilant by night, when the wandering vigilants would have returned to the safety of their stronghold. Not that it was much of one: it resembled nothing so much as an inn, a thatched-roof building tucked away in the rocks, south of a giant's camp. The three Companions crept towards it, fanning out around the building to make sure that no scouts patrolled around it. Vilkas frowned when they found nothing: either the Vigilants had become complacent in their safety, or they were more powerful fighters than he had at first assumed. Not that it mattered. This was not to be a stealth attack. This was letting the Vigilants of Stendarr know who, exactly, owned the woods of Skyrim.

He nodded to Aela, who had lit a small fire on the ground next to her, and now dipped the bow down into it. The flaming quarrel flew through the air, burying itself in the thatch of the roof. It took several blows for the flames to really begin to spread, and then as the smaller fires joined and the wind whipped them up into a roaring blaze. The Vigilants poured from the hall, some of them beating flames from their arms, some of them screaming. In the flickering light of the fire, he could see Aela's feral smile and Farkas' troubled frown, but yet he had no mercy for these men and women, unable to save their home. They had threatened Vilkas' home and his family, and they would pay the price in blood.

At first he had considered giving some sort of speech but in the end it seemed useless. "Kill all of them except the Keeper," he ordered Aela and Farkas instead, and the battle joined. The Vigilants were a military order, and it showed. Many were mages. Bolts of magic cut through the air, followed by cold steel. Vilkas leaped back to avoid a mace strike from a burly Redguard, using the momentum to chop at the man's neck, neatly taking off the man's head with a spurt of blood. A lightning bolt caught him in the arm, but he fought through it, bulling his way through to the mage responsible and taking off the hand she used to charge the spell with one sweep of the blade, and to use the momentum to stab her viciously through the stomach. She collapsed with a groan. The Vigilants screamed battle cries: _for Stendarr! Stendarr's mercy be upon you, for the vigil has none to spare!_ But the tide of the fight had already turned: he saw, from the corner of his eye, Farkas take down a charging Vigilant with a punch to the face. Aela had transformed into the beast form and wrecked havoc amongst the rest of them, tearing limbs from torsos and howling with terrifying glee.

He found himself fighting the blonde woman he suspected was the Keeper. She fought well, but her one-handed sword was no match for the greatsword. He toyed with her, batting away her strikes with blows that must have resonated up her arms with painful force, but she continued fighting, determinedly. "Die, monster! We will rid the world of your _stain_!"

"That was your first mistake," he replied. "We're only men, in the end. Men who don't put much stock in religion or bloody cults. And we don't take kindly to being _hunted."_

The tip of his sword whipping around caught her across the face, cutting through her left eye, and she screamed in pain, dropping her own blade and falling to her knees as tears streamed from her remaining eye. He looked around and saw that while he had taunted her, Aela and Farkas had created a small pile of corpses, some burnt, some bloody. As he stood over the Keeper, they walked forward to flank him, a wordless guard, Farkas a man and Aela a wolf, the united front of both sides of the Companions.

"What's your name, woman?" he demanded.

"Carcette," the Breton said grudgingly, her hard face twisted in pain, the pulped remnants of her eye, destroyed in the fight, a disgusting mess of a body part.

"Do you value your life, Keeper Carcette?" Vilkas asked.

She refused to answer, and when she looked as though she was about to spit in his face Aela, still in her wolf form, huge and hulking, lunged forward and slapped her hard across the face with her claws out, right above the injured eye, growling. "Answer him!"

A high squeal of pain escaped her lips involuntarily, and she panted heavily as she tried to regain her breath. "I value my life," Carcette said grudgingly.

"Then go to your superiors," Vilkas said. "And tell them what happened here today. Tell them what happens when you cross the Companions."

"Beast!" she spat, "Monster!"

"_You're_ the—" Vilkas growled. "Know this, Vigilant: the Companions cared not what you did. But the minute you threaten the lives of my family, the minute you started the links in the chain that lead to the death of one of our own, you sealed your own fate. Go to your superiors and tell them that Skyrim is not their territory anymore, and that any Vigilants we see from here on will meet the edge of our blades."

"I—" she started.

"Aela is a huntress," he said, fixing her with his intent, icy gaze. "If we do not receive word that the message has been delivered, then she will hunt you down. And we will not just take your other eye, we will take your worthless life."

Behind them, the Hall of the Vigilant burned merrily. He could see Farkas watching, keeping guard over his shoulder, and he did not like to think too long about the troubled frown on his brother's face.

* * *

><p>Dragonsreach looked as she had left it, stark, beautiful, imposing. To think that she was a member of the court of this lovely building was still surreal to her. Even a few years earlier, these men would not have let her cross the doorstep without suspicion. And now, outside, the guards nodded in a friendly manner as she approached, recognizing her face. One of them whistled when he saw the new set of armor. "Is that… dragon bone? Talos, what I wouldn't do to get my hands on a set of <em>that<em>!" And then he gulped. "Begging your pardon, Thane."

Sigrid grinned at him, and drawled, "Look all you want, boy. There's only one set of this in Tamriel, and it's not leaving _my_ hands."

But the smile faded as she stepped through the door into the Dragonsreach great hall and was instantly set upon by Lydia. The housecarl caught sight of her the minute she stepped into the light, almost as though she had been waiting for her to return, and rushed for her, her brown eyes determined. "My thane!" she exclaimed. "Please, allow me to fight in your service. You dishonor me by refusing my aid."

"Lydia, I have more to worry about than your honor—" Sigrid began.

"Nothing is more important than honor!" Lydia ground out, between her teeth, and for a moment Sigrid thought the woman might strike her. "I've been sitting around Dragonsreach so long that Hrongar's been teasing me about my soft blade. You insult me, Thane!"

"Than honor, no. But _your_ honor is not my concern right now. Ask Balgruuf to release you," Sigrid said, quietly furious. "This is not a joke. I do not require a housecarl. I don't _want_ a housecarl. I've told you this again and again. The places I've gone would _kill _you. I will not be responsible for your life and above all I will not be responsible for your bloody death."

"But you will for _Vil_kas," Lydia said, drawing the words out bitterly, almost spitting out the name. "But then, I suppose _I_ don't have a cock—"

"Lydia!" Sigrid said, drawing herself up rigidly. _How had the rumors spread_? She had not been… obvious. Perhaps Lydia had merely guessed the truth from the fact that they had departed from Jorrvaskr together and been gone several days. But Companions traveling together was not uncommon. She was surprised by the fury she felt, so sudden and brightly burning that she almost did something rash then and there. "If you ever, _ever _say anything like that to me again, by Ysmir, housecarl or not, I will take you outside and mark your face with the flat of my blade."

_But am I furious because she hit too closely to the truth? Or am I so angry because he's not _just _a bed mate anymore, though it might have started that way…_

The two women stood, each one glaring defiance, unwilling to look away. Eventually, however, Lydia looked down, and then whirled on her heel and stormed off into the depths of Dragonsreach, cursing. Sigrid did not rub salt in the wound, merely turned away from her housecarl and stalked off towards the Jarl's throne. This was not what she had wanted when she entered Dragonsreach. She needed to be at her absolute best. At her most impressive. Not bright red with fury, sputtering and longing to take the woman outside and teach her a lesson in manners. She took her time walking towards the dais, attempting to concentrate on her breath the way that Paarthurnax had taught her. Eventually, she felt calm enough, controlled enough to approach the throne. She would not kneel, but she did incline her head in a measured gesture of respect.

"Jarl Balgruuf," Sigrid said, "I require a boon, as your thane, and as the _Dovahkiin_, recognized at High Hrothgar by the Greybeards themselves." It was laying it on a bit thick and shame flooded her again at the pompous words, but the request was so outlandish that she knew she had to present herself as authoritatively as possible.

"What is it that you need, Thane?" Jarl Balgruuf asked.

"I need your help," Sigrid said, and then the next words emerged from her mouth in a rush, for she knew that the request would not be considered with anything approaching equanimity. "I need to trap a dragon in your palace."

"I must have misheard you," Balgruuf said, his wide blue eyes staring at her in a mixture of bemusement and annoyance. "I thought you asked me to help you trap a dragon in my palace."

"I know it sounds mad, but I'm not joking. I need to trap a dragon in the palace if I'm going to be able to stop the dragon attacks."

"I'm sorry, but I can't do it," Balgruuf said, shaking his head, as though he still did not want to believe her serious. "We'll just have to keep fighting the dragons as best we can. You want me to let a dragon into the heart of my city, with the threat of war on my doorstep? I can't do it."

"It's the only way to stop the dragon attacks," Sigrid insisted. "How will you defend yourself from Ulfric Stormcloak if a dragon's razed your walls?"

"There must be another way," Balgruuf insisted, head still shaking, as though by indicating his disapproval in such a manner, it could change the very outcome. "The risk is too great."

"The threat is worse than you know," Sigrid replied. "Alduin has returned."

"Alduin? The World-Eater himself? But… how can we fight him? Doesn't his return mean it's the end times?" The Jarl slumped into his throne, defeated by the weight of the many responsibilities on his shoulders.

"It's only the end times if we give up," Sigrid insisted, "It's not as though I don't have a plan. Let me trap the dragon here, and I'll be able to find Alduin after I interrogate him. I'm the Dragonborn—it's my destiny to kill him." She realized how ridiculous it sounded, but it was the only way to try and convince him.

"I don't know about such things, but I heard the Greybeards summon you… that's good enough for me. If you have some insane plan to find the World-Eater, then who am I to stop you? But my people are my first concern, thane, and you must understand that. I want to help you, Dragonborn, and I will… But I need your help first. Ulfric and General Tullius are both just waiting for me to make a wrong move. Do you think they will sit idle while a dragon is slaughtering my men and burning my city? No. I can't risk weakening the city while we are under the threat of enemy attack. I'm sorry."

Sigrid's hands curled into fists, and she bit her lip in frustration. She understood Balgruuf's fears, but they neither helped her nor the citizens of Whiterun hold. All of them would die if Alduin were allowed to continue on his merry way. How could she convince him? There was no way to get him to agree to it, not with the civil war raging around them and—Sigrid stopped, suddenly. It was a mad idea, totally mad, but… she had no other options. She lifted her chin and met Balgruuf's blue eyes with her gray ones. "What if you didn't have to worry about an enemy attack?

"Then I would be glad to help you with your mad dragon-trapping scheme," Balgruuf said, troubled, his brows knitted together above his eyes. "But getting both sides to agree to a truce will be difficult at this point. The bitterness has gone too deep."

"Who said anything about a truce?" Sigrid said, inwardly wincing at the bravado of her words, though her expression did not falter, her shoulders thrown back, all confidence and warrior pride. _If I can convince him I can do this, then maybe I _can _do it…_

Jarl Balgruuf stared at her, astounded, before the true meaning of her words began to sink in. Then, for the first time since she'd known him, he began to laugh, the sound echoing in the quiet throne room. "Aye, Dragonborn… maybe you can stop the dragons—and this war into the bargain."


	26. Wars

**AN: **As always, reviews are much appreciated, if y'all don't mind. A quick word here and there about what you like (or what you don't like) is super, super helpful.

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><p><em>Now a storm is brewing, and wild it grows swiftly.<em>

—The Poetic Edda, from _Atlamol en Grönlenzku_, translated by Henry Adams Bellows

* * *

><p>Farkas didn't speak to him on the long trek back to Jorrvaskr, which made it an extremely uncomfortable walk. Aela scouted ahead: the twins could barely see her in the distance, as she crouched in and out of the underbrush, as natural as an animal in the wild. Normally such a situation would have reminded him of the old days, when as little more than children they'd ventured out into the woods, Vilkas and Farkas taking up the rear and Aela forging ahead, fearless and deadly even at such a young age. The brothers hadn't taken it as seriously as she did, taking the hunt as an opportunity to mock each other, scuffle in impromptu wrestling matches, scaring off all of the game in miles. The same configuration, years later, with the only sounds breaking the silence the crunch of their feet in the snow, felt inherently wrong. The worst part, of course, was that Vilkas knew exactly the reason for his brother's studied silence.<p>

"You going to say anything?" Vilkas asked him, as they moved quickly through Rorikstead.

"Kodlak wouldn't've liked the way you did that," Farkas said, and refused to elaborate. When annoyed, he could become mulish.

"If we don't wipe them out, they're going to keep coming for us," Vilkas said sharply. "What we did, we did for the good of the Companions."

"Was taking the Keeper's eye for the good of the Companions?" Farkas demanded. "Was toying with her like wounded prey for the good of the Companions, brother?"

"A message needed to be sent," Vilkas said, between gritted teeth.

"Aye, you've sent it," Farkas replied, "But Kodlak wouldn't've liked it and I didn't either. I think you should avoid these special missions for a while, eh? Until you get your head straight."

"And what of Driftshade Refuge?" he asked Farkas. "The last great Silver Hand bastion in Skyrim. Are we just to let them alone? Allow them to live? Allow them to continue without the knowledge that their days are numbered?"

"I don't know about that," Farkas said. "I'm not good with plans. But I do know that when men call you a monster, it don't do to prove 'em right. Maybe this isn't the right time for you. Maybe you need to figure your damn rage first."

Vilkas did not answer him, for there was nothing to say to that. In his heart he knew that this came down to the same reasons that he had originally been troubled by the idea of giving up the beast-blood: because when it came down to it, he suspected that his fury and the dark violent side of his personality were the man and not the wolf. To have such a thing proven to himself would be… unpleasant. He did not pursue the conversation further, and eventually, Aela looped back around to catch up with them by the Bleakwind Basin, glancing from one brother to the other with a raised eyebrow. But she knew well enough not to say anything, and the three of them, filthy and covered in blood and sweat and dirt from the road, wearily entered the city of Whiterun.

He was not expecting to find Jorrvaskr in a turmoil—or at least, not this sort of turmoil. Sigrid stood on the steps of the mead hall, attempting to pry a small, mousy-haired boy away from her leg. "_I'm sending you back to your bloody parents!"_ she was yelling, her face bright red. Reluctance to harm the boy, however, made it difficult to remove him, for she could neither kick too hard or slap him away. And so she merely wriggled uncomfortably, shaking her leg and trying to peel his fingers away from her trousers. As the three travelers moved closer, Vilkas saw, to his surprise and amusement, that the child was Velwyn Lucilius. However many problems the strange arrival of the child might bring, he found himself welcoming both the distraction and the humorous image before him.

"No! I'm not going back and you can't make me!" the boy insisted.

Sigrid looked up and saw that Vilkas, Farkas, and Aela were all watching her with broad, slightly nasty smiles. "He _took a fucking cart from Solitude,_" she growled, "_By himself_."

"I ran away from home!" Velwyn corrected her, still clinging like a nordic barnacle to her leg as she shook it, attempting to dislodge him. "I want to join the Companions, I'm not going home, and you can't make me!"

"Do your parents know where you are, boy?" Farkas asked.

"_No_," Velwyn said.

"Didn't you think that after you were _kidnapped_ that running away might not be a good idea?" Vilkas asked.

"No!" the boy said. "It's not like they'd notice, anyway. They don't care about me except when their _pride_ is wounded."

"Let go of my bloody leg," Sigrid ordered him.

"No!" he said. "If I do you're going to send me _back_."

"You can't hold onto her leg forever," Vilkas said, crouching down next to the boy. "You're going to have to eat eventually." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "And use the chamber pot."

"If you piss on my leg, so help me Talos, I will murder you myself," Sigrid growled.

"I didn't think about that," Velwyn said.

"Why don't you let go of her leg, and we'll talk, eh, Velwyn?" Vilkas said. "Man to man."

Velwyn looked at him suspiciously from around the edge of Sigrid's leg. "You promise?"

"I promise," Vilkas said solemnly. "Let go of her leg, and we'll talk."

"All right," Velwyn said, slowly separating himself from the woman's side, "But you gave your _word_ so you better not lie to me."

Sigrid shook out her leg again, grimacing, as she worked the blood to flowing again, but she followed Vilkas as he led the boy into the Jorrvaskr hall. Although he had seen it before, the child still stared wide-eyed around him, fascinated by the long table and the weapons hanging from racks along the walls, the fragments of Wuuthrad in their pride of place at the end of the hall. "_Wicked_," he breathed. "It's _just_ like I thought it'd be." He pushed his lank brown hair away from his eyes, squinting up at Vilkas. "You're not going to send me away, are you? Please don't make me go home. I want to be a Companion!"

"Sit down, boy," Vilkas ordered him. Velwyn sat, obediently, staring from Vilkas to Sigrid with wide, pleading eyes as Vilkas tried to remember the tone that Jergen had taken with him when he misbehaved, stern and implacable. Tried to remember the way the words had terrified Farkas but made Vilkas listen and carefully evaluate his options. Sigrid stood uncomfortably next to him, arms folded over her chest, unsure of how to deal with children, and for a moment he fought the urge to laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation. "You've put us in a difficult position. We don't have the numbers to waste warriors escorting you back to Solitude again. And it's not safe for you to travel alone; gods know you could easily have been killed attempting to reach Whiterun by any number of things."

"So I can _stay_—" Velwyn started.

"Don't interrupt, boy," Vilkas said, glaring at him. The boy instantly shrank in his seat. "Listen closely. We're going to write a letter to your parents and send it by courier letting them know where you are and that you're still alive, and that they will send their own guards to retrieve you, at their own expense. In the meantime, you will remain here, but you're going to earn your keep."

"I can learn how to fight?" Velwyn started excitedly, but Vilkas held up his hand.

"_No. _As a punishment for the inconvenience you've caused us and the worry, no doubt, that you have inflicted upon your parents, you're going to help Tilma in the kitchen and cleaning the hall until your parents send a guard for you."

"But they don't even _notice_ me, they won't even know I'm _gone—_" Velwyn started to protest.

"_No buts_," Vilkas said, and then raised his voice as he called, "Tilma! Come show our young friend around the hall."

The old woman looked up from where she had been clearing away plates from the table. "Yes, dear," Tilma said pleasantly, and then turned her kind smile on the boy. It had been a long time since Jorrvaskr had seen children beneath its roof, and though she was no longer as spry as she used to be, he knew that she would take Velwyn under her wing much as she had done for two young orphans many years ago. As she led him away, she handed him a stack of dishes to carry, and Vilkas knew that at the very least, she would keep him busy enough to stay out of trouble.

He was distracted from his musings by the sound of a muffled snigger, and looked up to find that Sigrid was watching him with eyes crinkled in a smile and her mouth tugged up in a smirk. "What's so damn funny?" he demanded.

"Oh, nothing," she said innocently, between choked off laughter, "I just never figured you for the _fatherly_ type…!"

"Woman, you're treading on dangerous ground."

"Oh, no, are you going to make me do the dishes too?" Sigrid teased him. "Fetch your sword again? I've already done my time being your bloody errand girl."

"Don't think for a damn second I won't do it again."

"I'd like to see you try. You'd have to fight me."

He could see Farkas shaking his head, and coughed into his fist. He gave too much away, too easily these days. That would need to change, in the future, especially if he had moved into a position of responsibility beyond that of Master of Arms. _I wonder if Kodlak ever had problems like these_, he wondered, and snorted. Of course he didn't.

* * *

><p>Later that night, Sigrid, dressed only in shirt and breeches, sat with the other Companions around the long tables and listened to the news they had to share, of the destruction of the Hall, of new jobs flowing in, of the Silver Hand on the run. And for a moment she considered not telling them of her battle with Alduin, of keeping that secret close to the chest. But in the warm light of the fire, with a belly full of roasted chicken and venison stew and her worries muted somewhat by the ale and companionship, she made the decision to do it. The Companions deserved to know what was happening, especially if her plan to force Jarl Balgruuf to accede to trapping a dragon in his palace went the way she suspected that it was going to. It would be a conflict that would draw all of them in. She waited, though, listening to the mercenaries telling the others of their latest exploits.<p>

Aela spoke first, and Sigrid found herself wincing a little as she told of their destruction of the Hall of the Vigilant, putting it to the torch, of the ensuing battle. She had known that Aela still took the beast-form, but imagining her tearing into the corpses of her enemies turned her stomach just a bit. As did the further account of Vilkas' mutilation of Keeper Carcette; she noticed with some trepidation that Farkas had his eyes on his brother the entire time of the narrative, a frown crossing his face. _And this is another reason I've avoided putting down roots,_ she thought sourly. She didn't have to worry only about her own problems, but about the disagreements and concerns of others. As Aela continued the savage tale, she shivered. She had seen the fury, what Vilkas was capable of inflicting on his enemies, but not to that degree.

Torvar next told a rollicking tale of his exploits attempting to remove a bear from the cellar of a home in Riverwood. "And then I said to him, how the hell did the bear get into your cellar anyway?" His face contorted into a comically puzzled expression, his hands flying with the expansive gestures that were a mark of his speech. Whatever his worth as a warrior, Torvar was a born storyteller. "And he didn't want to answer, now, and his face went red as a bloody beet… you know, there are men of unnatural _inclinations_ out in the world but you don't expect to see that o' a bear…" As the story went on, more and more unbelievable, Torvar had the Companions twisted in gales of laughter, and at the end, Torvar took a bow, flourishing a hand into the air in a gesture of thanks before flopping down into his seat, self-satisfied.

"And you?" Ria asked Sigrid eagerly. "What have you done in the last few weeks, Sigrid?"

So she took a deep breath, and told them. Told them of the search for the Elder Scroll in Blackreach with Vilkas and her journey to the Throat of the World to read the _kel_ at the time-wound, and the battle against Alduin. As she described the fight, how she had almost lost it, the broken rib and the burns, she saw him watching her with narrowed, icy eyes. She ignored him, refused to look him in the eye. It was not a place she could bring a shield-sibling, let alone _him_, and she would not be made to feel guilty for it. Sigrid continued: "And so, in order to convince the Jarl to allow us to trap one of Alduin's lieutenants in Dragonsreach, I need to ensure that Whiterun is safe from attack. He suggested a truce, but… I'm not much of a negotiator."

"So… what, exactly, do you propose to do instead? What's your brilliant plan?" Njada asked, sarcasm dripping from the words.

"We're going to win the war," Sigrid said.

"Excuse me, shield-sister," Athis interrupted, his slanted red eyes wide with disbelief. "I thought you just said you were going to _win_ the _war_?"

"You heard me correctly," Sigrid said, sharply. "It's the only way."

"We're not soldiers," Aela cut in, her green eyes intent, focused on Sigrid. "We don't declare sides. That's not the Companions' way. I didn't think that was _your_ way, either, shield-sister."

"It is not," Sigrid answered. "This is not a decision I'm making bloody likely. This is about more than _our ways_ or what makes the most sense. It's mad, I know it, but it's the only option left. This is about the future of Skyrim—Tamriel, or the entire world, perhaps—not just _our ways_. I do not ask _you_ to fight my battles. I only say this to warn you that the battles may be coming to Whiterun sooner than you might expect."

"And for which side do you plan to declare?" Aela asked.

Sigrid had not asked where Aela stood on the war; when she had asked Skjor about it once before, he told her that the Companions believed in lending their swords solely for money, that they did not truck in ideology, in causes. That did not mean that the tensions that had split Skyrim apart did not run deep. "The Imperials."

"Oh?" Aela said, raising one eyebrow. The other Companions stared at Sigrid, Ria's eyes wide, Athis' narrowed, Torvar's face merely flummoxed.

She felt very weary, then, in a way that she had not before, but forced herself to sit up straight in the seat. "I've seen the Thalmor in action, Aela. They are… brutal. Evil. In much the same way as the dragons. We're but a speck of dirt beneath their shoe, to be ground off into the dust. Do you really think that Ulfric can stand alone against them?"

"_I_ don't think anything," Aela replied, the slightly dangerous gleam back in her eyes again. "We're mercenaries, not soldiers. We deal in hard coin, not causes."

"And I'm not saying that you need to come with me, or to pledge your sword to the cause of the Empire," Sigrid said, quiet but firm. "But, as shield-siblings, I am telling you what I will be doing. Where I must go. In good faith."

"Well isn't that bloody _thoughtful_ of you," Njada drawled.

"Njada," Farkas said, "Enough."

The conversation went on a while longer, but eventually, the Companions accepted, however grudgingly, that they might be drawn into the conflict, some of them more easily than others. Torvar merely shook his head, muttering, "This is mad. Am I drunk? I must be drunk, this doesn't make any sense…" Although she had verbally acquiesced, Aela's sharp gaze did not sway from Sigrid's face, a frown knotting her lovely brow. Eventually, the conversation and debate died down, and they began to drift off to their quarters. Sigrid remained in her seat, eyes half-closed, and sighed. This was yet another reason she preferred to keep to herself: there was no need to justify her actions to anyone. With a sigh, she looked up and saw that she was the only one left in the mead hall: the others had returned to their rooms.

Sigrid found herself slipping down to the living quarters, avoiding the room for the whelps where Ria, Athis, Torvar and Njada slept, though she had been intending to sleep there. Something drove her on to Vilkas' room. The memory, perhaps, of Aela speaking of Vilkas' violent destruction of the Vigilants made her wonder at his state of mind. Or perhaps it was merely a strange need to see _him_, in the quiet confines of a bedroom, before setting off again. Whatever the reason, she found herself sneaking through the door, shutting it carefully behind her. He lay in the bed, atop the covers in only his smallclothes, hands folded behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. His face was absent and troubled and at the sound of the door, he sat up abruptly.

Vilkas sat up, suddenly: he had been so lost in his own thoughts that he had not, at first, heard her. Despite his sharp hearing. Despite the smell of her, so familiar now. "Shield-sister," he greeted her, though the word sounded strange in his ears.

She stood in the doorway, her hands still resting against the back of the door as she frowned at him. "Shield-brother." Crossing the room, she sat down on the bed next to him, her hand on his leg, her fingers running over the muscle of it. Like stroking a fractious hound, to calm it. The irony did not escape him. "You seem troubled."

He growled, briefly, a short, sharp sound of frustration, though he did not pull away from her hand. "Troubled?" The heat of her fingers warmed him, the weight of them familiar and comforting. The rough scrape of her callused palm against his skin. "Aye, I'm troubled."

"Why?"

Because of feelings he could barely articulate in words, complicated spirals of thought that twisted around each other, problems inseparable from the others. If only he could yank the knot, draw the strands apart. If he could attack one thing at a time, he could manage it. But now… "Kodlak's trust in me is misplaced. After the Hall of the Vigilant… My own brother thinks I'm a bloody monster. And all I've tried to do is the best for this family. For what's left of it." He bit out the words between his teeth, almost grudgingly. "Maybe he's right. Maybe I am the wolf, in the end, and not the man. Maybe all I am is Hircine's creature. Maybe I always was a monster."

"No," she said, shaking her head.

"The hell do you know of it?" he growled. And then he was unsure of who moved first, Sigrid or himself. They had gone from sitting and speaking to prone on the bed, bodies straining for the upper hand, a familiar dance. Eventually, with a twist of her legs, she managed to get him on his back, and sat straddling his hips, a reverse of their position the last time she'd left, her fingers tight against his wrists.

"You're a good man," she said simply.

"I thought I'm an arrogant skeever-shit," he said wryly, raising an eyebrow.

"Don't be so bloody disingenuous. You're a good man. I _know _you are."

"How the hell do you know, Sigrid? Remember, you've seen me… lose control of myself. The way that troubles Farkas so. You've seen the _monster_." Two kinds of losses, both violent: the first when he'd smashed the face of Calixto Corrium into a featureless pulp, and the second on the plains of Whiterun beneath the light of the full moons, a memory that, despite the violence of it, made his cock twitch.

"And remember that I was with you in the lighthouse, when we jumped from that ledge to find survivors in that charnel house," she replied. "Remember you almost _died_ for them. Do you need a list, man? Ysgramor's balls! You obviously care about this cobbled-together family, and your brother. Trust me when I say a monster wouldn't care so much for others. You're _loyal_. Monsters aren't, they turn on their own in a heartbeat. We all have our fury or we wouldn't be any damn good as warriors. And you're a _damn_ good one." And she leaned over him, smirking a bit, her lips ghosting against his ear before pulling away. "Now. Do you need to be _reassured_ further?"

He did not reply, at first, merely looked up at her, searching her plain face, scrubbed clean of warpaint, pale and earnest in the flickering light. "And you—what's this about fighting the bloody World Eater and the Stormcloaks alone? I thought you'd moved beyond that."

"I didn't _know_ it was going to happen," she replied. "I'm not a fucking seer. And I can't bloody well bring you everywhere all of the damn time. I wouldn't _want_ to." And now it was her turn to look troubled, a frown creeping across her face. "Vilkas—there's a reason that what we're doing is—dangerous. The places I'm going, the things I need to do… you could di—"

"I know," he said, and rolled over, easily dislodging her weight, pushing her away so that they lay side by side in his narrow bed, facing each other across the small space between them, barely a breath away. "Bloody hell, woman, don't you think I know? Don't you think I watched Aela and Skjor hiding, skulking around Jorrvaskr, denying it though everyone knew? Don't you think I've dealt first hand with the aftermath of his loss?"

She chewed at her lip, scowling, the thin skin of it tearing bloody, though she did not seem to notice the red pooling at the break. "It's not as though I don't _know_ that. But this keeps happening, and I can't see a good end to it. I can't afford to falter at the wrong moment. I can't afford weakness. _You_ can't, either." Her tongue licked the blood away, absently.

He narrowed his eyes, looking carefully at her face, the hard lines of it twisted into a frown, and he realized that despite her words her hand was reflexively gripping his arm, the fingers flexing as though the contact could anchor her, a necessary touch despite her reservations. Somehow, it heartened him. "So what do you propose, shield-sister?" he asked, a sardonic drawl, covering up the sudden strangeness at the thought, tinged with disappointment and a faint anger. "Will you stop coming to my room every night?"

"I don't know," she said, very quietly, before shifting suddenly and pushing him over again, the balance of power a constant shift, a fluid dance. A fight with no victor. "I don't wish to talk of this anymore now, shield-brother," she said, reaching for him.

"When, then?"

But she did not reply, only kissed him long and slow; the warm, strong weight of her body rubbing against him, and he gave in. Did not question her anymore. He let her take what she needed from him, as she had done that night in Windhelm, and he tried not to consider the questions too closely himself.

In the morning, they shared a brief goodbye under the awning of Jorrvaskr. A quick clasp of hands before the sun rose, when no one else watched, so hard he thought she might try to break his fingers. And then she was gone, off into the unknown once more, as she had always done, as she would always do.

* * *

><p>The stark beauty of Sky Haven Temple was a punch in the gut, even now. As she crept carefully through the great hall with the prophecy carving, Sigrid lingered near it, looking once again at the carved Dragonborn with the claw scar slashing down its face before shaking herself out of the contemplative trance and climbing the stairs towards the grand porch behind the main temple. Outside, the sun had set bloody behind the mountains of the Reach, outlining the man and woman who stood at the very edge of the broad stone expanse, staring out onto the harsh landscape, the river carving out a track through the mountains. As she squinted against the fading sun, Sigrid could see Delphine in her Blades armor, foreign in its curved lines and dark metal, beautiful but utilitarian and deadly. She moved closer to them, as quietly as possible, listening to their conversation.<p>

Esbern, holding a torch as he stared out over the horizon, murmured, "…I want to leave my high place to seek shelter—from what I don't yet know. In the manner of dreams, I cannot escape. I'm forced to wait and watch. Then, finally, realization and horror arrive together. The orange is flame. Heat. The sound, the roar, a challenge in their ancient tongue. But now it's too late for escape. The dragon is upon me; fire and darkness descending like a thunderbolt. And not just any dragon, but _the_ dragon! Alduin! The World Eater. The dragon who devours both the living and the dead. And then I would wake up and hope it was just a dream, but know that it was not…"

"Esbern," Delphine cut in reassuringly, "your dreams have not always come to pass. Perhaps it's merely symbolic."

"I don't think so, Delphine," Esbern said, setting the torch down in a sconce and resting his hands on the edge of the crenellation. "This… felt too real. I'm still forced to watch and wait as the signs and portents align, and I fear it may be too late when Alduin finally does make his move…"

Sigrid coughed into her hand, and both Blades turned sharply, Delphine's hand slipping instinctively towards the handle of her thin, curved blade, Esbern merely sizing her and the dragon-bone armor up with cold blue eyes. Both warriors relaxed when they saw that it was only Sigrid.

"Ah, Dragonborn! Did you find the Elder Scroll? What happened when you took it back to the Throat of the World?" Esbern asked, his keen old eyes fixed on her face unblinkingly. Delphine stood at his side, a frown tilting her lips down—she seemed suspicious as Sigrid told an abbreviated version of her tale, beginning with liberating the _Kel _from the depths of Blackreach and reading it at the time wound, learning the Shout to bring down Alduin and the ultimately anticlimactic battle at the tip of the mountain. She did not mention Paarthurnax: somehow, it didn't seem right to break the Greybeards' pact with him, or the elderly dragon's own trust in her.

"After the battle, I defeated Alduin, but he escaped," Sigrid finished. "I need to find where he's gone and finish the job."

"He must have returned to Sovngarde to feed on the souls of the dead," Esbern muttered to himself, running a hand over his gray and balding head, a worried frown on his face. "If you don't find him soon, he'll return stronger than ever, glutted on the heroes of heaven itself."

"Don't worry, I have a plan," Sigrid replied. "I'm going to trap a dragon in Dragonsreach."

"The Jarl's palace in Whiterun?" Esbern said, shocked into surprise, something she thought would not have been possible to accomplish. She _had_ shocked him, though, she could see it on his face, the slightly slack tilt of his mouth as he stared at her, and then laughed as though she'd told the most hilarious joke in the world. "Ah, yes… the old story about King Olaf's pet dragon. Ingenious! Though it might be difficult to persuade the Jarl to allow you to use his palace as a dragon trap. I'm sure you'll manage though, if you can defeat the World Eater…"

"Don't worry about that, either," Sigrid said, "I've got a plan to ensure Whiterun's safety and his cooperation." A mad plan. A plan she had no idea whether she could even survive. But there was no sense in telling them the entire thing. She had seen the fanatical gleam in Delphine's eyes the last time she had come to Sky Haven Temple, and she still did not trust them fully.

"I'm afraid there's a further problem," Esbern said. "A serious one."

"What is it?" Sigrid said, on her guard. She looked from Esbern to Delphine but both warriors had implacable, unreadable expressions on their lined faces.

"I've discovered who the Greybeards' leader really is," Esbern said, "Paarthurnax, the dragon that the Greybeards have been protecting for all these years."

Sigrid sighed; she had feared that this would come to pass. "Yes, I know. I already know that he's a dragon, but Esbern, he's not like the others. He's helped me; he's been helping men since the end of the Dragon Wars. He's wise and well… not at all like a dragon. The fact that he's the leader of the Greybeards shouldn't matter, in the end—they only want to teach the Way of the Voice, and he only wants to be left alone on his mountaintop."

"All well and good," he said darkly, "But did you know that he was Alduin's chief lieutenant in the ancient times? Responsible for terrible atrocities! It's true that his crimes are long in the past, but justice does not count the passage of years. Justice can be harsh, but it is still justice, and it has a longer memory than most men. Paarthurnax deserves to die."

"Esbern!" Sigrid said furiously. "How can you say such a thing? Yes, he may have committed atrocities in the past, but he has always been honest with me when I asked about them, or about his motives—unlike you or Delphine, might I add!—and he's sincerely atoned for what he has done. He's the reason we're not still suffering beneath Alduin's yoke to this day. If you met him, you'd understand. It's not _like that."_

"No, girl," Esbern cut her off. "You're blinded by emotions and sentimental attachment. This is not befitting a warrior. This is not befitting the Dragonborn. These crimes were great enough to be remembered for _thousands of years_. True, he may have turned traitor to Alduin, but whether or not he has truly repented, or whether he was merely acting to save his miserable skin, justice demands that he pay with his life for his past crimes."

"I've done terrible things in my past, too—do I deserve to die for them?" Sigrid demanded. "Would you execute _me_ for the men I've killed? For the lives I've disrupted? And let me tell you now, Esbern, I have killed men in ways that would chill your blood and I have not atoned for it. I will _not _atone for it. Would you tell me that _I_ deserve death, though I'm of the race of men? Or is it merely because Paarthurnax is a _dovah_ that you've decided he deserves to die? You know that I have the soul of a dragon, that the will for power and domination could easily consume _me_?" She was breathing hard now, the fury having worked its way through her so thoroughly that she feared she might lose control of her hands. Her fist longed to find Esbern's face, to smash it to pieces. "Tell me, Esbern—is the death sentence for his crimes or for his dragon's soul? After I defeat Alduin, will you come for _me_ with a knife in the dark for _my_ 'atrocities'?"

Esbern merely stared at her in silence for long moments, his jaw working as he attempted to hold back his fury. "You are… misguided, Dragonborn. Of course we would not turn on you—if you retain the ideals that our order has espoused for centuries. Killing the dragons. Protecting the Empire. But you have been blinded by the honeyed words of the serpent. And if you do not stand with us, you stand against us, and I can no longer offer you aid and succor."

Delphine had come to stand next to him, her weather-beaten face pressed into a disapproving frown. "Keep in mind your allegiance, Dragonborn. Keep in mind that you do not go too far!" she said sharply. "Or you shall be reined in again."

"Is that a threat, Delphine?" Sigrid said, straightening her shoulders, hand on the hilt of her sword. "What, are you angry I'm not acting the good little weapon, to kill where you see fit? I'm not a bloody sword, woman, to cut where you like. Might I remind you that Alduin is still on the run? You need _me_, whether you like my methods, or not."

"Aye," Delphine said, that fanatical gleam in her eye again. The same one that had appeared the day Sigrid left for High Hrothgar in search of the secret of Dragonrend. In that moment she looked murderous, and Sigrid could well imagine how a woman of her age—closer to sixty than fifty winters—and such fury could have survived for so long. Her voice was flat as she said quietly, "But there will come a day, Dragonborn, when such concerns will not trouble us. And ah, we shall have a reckoning then, if you continue down this path. If a dog is rabid, it will be put down."

"You're making a mistake," Sigrid said coldly, as she backed away from them. "And I only hope that you will live to see it realized." And she turned on her heel and stalked from the Temple, pausing only to spit once on the ground.

This was no great loss. If she could not trust her allies not to slip a knife into her back, they were not allies worth keeping.

And one day, one day, Esbern and Delphine would have their reckoning, though not in the manner they expected.

The journey to Solitude from the Reach went quickly, for her rage lent her energy. The rain that began to fall halfway through cooled her temper, but made the remaining trek incredibly unpleasant, the rain running down her helmet and neck and below her armor. _I could clear the skies_, she thought, and immediately discounted the idea. It was one thing to rely on the _thu'um_ in battle, but to use it for such a menial task—or to use _wuld_ to speed up her journey—gave her the unpleasant feeling that she would be indulging the desire to ease her way with magic a bit too much. If she came to grow so used to it, what did that mean about the state of her soul?

It was a dripping-wet woman who trudged through the gates of Solitude, a little wary in case a Thalmor agent happened to be lurking around. She hadn't been back to the city since her disastrous escape in the pink dress, but there was no need to take chances. She did gain a few odd looks when some of the citizens noticed the armor, and the whistles and murmurs carried on the wind to her ears. To Sigrid's intense discomfort, rumors about the Dragonborn and her exploits had been spreading, though she had tried to avoid such a thing. _That's the Dragonborn, _a woman murmured to her friend, _she's killed a goodly number of them already, and she wears their bones for armor. _Another: _I've heard she runs with the wolves in the forest. Little more than a savage._ Another: _I've heard she's a criminal, that she was going to the block at Helgen and a dragon saved her life_. And then: _shhh, do you want her to hear you_?

For a woman who had courted anonymity throughout her life, it felt strange, now, to be so recognized. She had brought it on herself, by announcing herself in the holds, by dressing in the bones of the dragons, and again, she reminded herself that it was all for the good of the ultimate mission. Destroying Alduin and his cohorts so she could go back to minding her own business. _Too late for that_, her treacherous brain whispered, but she ignored it as she strode up the ramp towards Castle Dour, several guards leaping out of the way and exclaiming, "What's the hurry?" as she went. _Because if I don't hurry, I'll lose my damn nerve_, Sigrid thought. Joining the Legion—or at least offering her assistance—was the culmination of accepting that she had changed. That she could work within the bounds of authority, that she could be tied down once more to commanders and ranks. The thought made her shudder.

And she thought of her father, always a Legion man, even when he'd been honorably discharged due to the wounds he'd received in the Great War. A war that had separated him from his wife for the few years they had left in their marriage. And yet he always spoke fondly of his days as a legionnaire. The camaraderie he had found with his fellow soldiers. The well-kept order of the days, the comforting routine. That the Legion always took care of its own, if they accepted the help. She thought of their small shack in the woods, the many days of cold when she had been too young to chop the wood for the fire and her father in too much pain. The Legion hadn't been there then, but Haakon Frost-Born was not the sort of man to accept aid, even from former colleagues. She thought of his face as it would have looked today, had he still been alive to see her walking these steps, throwing open this door, striding through the gloomy stone corridors of Castle Dour.

The guards did not stop her. Sloppy work. But perhaps so many men and women in armor strode through these doors every day that they did not notice one who did not belong, not if she walked with purpose. Walked straight into a room with a huge map of Skyrim spread across a table, red and blue flags dotting it. Around it stood a man and a woman, both dressed in Imperial armor. The General, up close, was not so intimidating as he had seemed when she'd been walking to the chopping block in Helgen. He was in his fifties, gray-haired and grim, with elaborately guilded armor that ended in the little skirt that Sigrid fond so hilariously inappropriate. The Nord woman was blonde and going to gray, and had the hard face of a warrior—similar and yet so different from Delphine. There was a gruffness about her that made Sigrid feel she could instinctively be trusted.

General Tullius looked up, and frowned, unimpressed by the dragonbone, by the Skyforge steel, by her warpaint or her scars. "Are my men now giving free rein for anyone to wander around in the castle?" he barked. "Do you have some reason to be here, citizen?"

"Many reasons," Sigrid said. "The simplest of which is that I wish to assist the Legion."

He frowned at her now, looking her over more carefully. "You look familiar, girl."

She bristled at the condescending tone, and said dryly. "You're right. We have met before. I was at Helgen."

"Right… Helgen. One of the_ prisoners_, if I recall correctly?" the General said, with the faint hint of a sneer in his words.

"It was a mistake," Sigrid said. The female Legate was eyeing her with interest, but Tullius looked unimpressed. "I'm not a criminal, just a mercenary who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And my father… my father was a legionnaire. I can continue with my bloody credentials, if you'd like. I rescued Hadvar from Helgen, and he said he'd vouch for me." Something held her back from declaring herself Dragonborn to this Imperial, who looked at her like she was some barbarian fresh from the woods. Maybe to the legate. A Nord would understand such things.

"Who was your father?" the woman asked her.

"Haakon Frost-Born," Sigrid said. "Honorably discharged in '73 for a leg injury the healers reached too late."

"Really," the woman said, looking her over again with a more pointed interest than she had shown before. "Haakon Frost-Born… now that's a name I haven't heard in many a year."

"You knew him?" Sigrid said. The woman looked to be in her mid to late forties, and had her father lived he would have been almost in his sixties. If they had known each other, the legate must have been very young at the time.

"He was my tribune when I was a wet-behind-the-ears auxiliary," the woman said, and grinned. "A hard taskmaster. But fair."

"Aye, that he was," Sigrid said, remembering the times he had drilled her in archery. In skinning an animal quickly. In stalking silently through the woods. He had been harsh, but not impatient. Expected the best and was disappointed when he was not given it. To think that this hard woman had known her father in his prime, before the sword of a Thalmor soldier had ruined him, was strange.

"If we're over this touching reunion, I have other matters to attend to," General Tullius said sharply, "Frost-Born, why don't you have a chat with Legate Rikke. I suspect we might have a use for someone as resourceful as you. Not many survived Helgen. And I'm sure your imprisonment was all just… a terrible misunderstanding." His words were short and clipped, military and precise and to the point, and as soon as he looked away form her, she could tell that out of sight meant out of mind for him. Just as well.

Rikke, however, proved a little more accommodating, and nodded sharply as Sigrid crossed the room towards her. "Not many survived Helgen, and your father was a good man—so I've got a good feeling about you. I don't often feel that way about _anyone_, but a warrior learns to trust her gut, aye?"

"Aye," Sigrid said, returning the small smile with a tight grin of her own.

"We're not going to go through the normal process with you, I think," Rikke said, eyeing her dragon armor. "Somehow, I have the feeling that you have other concerns on your mind. Regardless, I've a little test lined up—pass that, and then we can talk about you joining the Legion. Fail it, and I've no use for your corpse anyway."

"Fair enough," Sigrid replied. "Tell me more."

* * *

><p>Over the next few weeks, Vilkas heard only rumors of Sigrid's whereabouts. That she had made it to Solitude and had cleared a bandit fort not far from the city, that she had sworn loyalty to the Emperor and the Legion. Heimskr had picked up on the rumors at some point during the time and now spent much of his days ranting in front of the statue of Talos about this defection. "So rise up! Rise up, children of the Empire! Rise up, Stormcloaks! Embrace the word of mighty Talos, he who is both man and Divine! It matters not if this false Dragonborn has sided with the vile, elven loving traitors! Listen to me, citizens of Whiterun! Cast out this traitor in our midst! A true daughter of Talos would never support these Thalmor-loving weaklings!"<p>

Vilkas listened to his rambling for several long minutes, watching as the priest's face grew gradually more and more purple, as the spittle flew from his withered lips, shaking his head in dismay. Heimskr was just a piece of the scenery: though his shrieking sermons were delivered right outside of Jorrvaskr, the Companions had simply learned to ignore him over the years. Generally, he was harmless, if single-minded and noisy. It was not until he began screaming about the Dragonborn kneeling before the Thalmor like a willing whore that Vilkas casually backhanded the man across the face, knocking him to the ground. "You go too far, priest," he said, and ignored Heimskr's cries of dismay and pain and the guard following after him, at a respectful distance, muttering abashedly about a bounty. Vilkas ignored him, stalked up through the steps of Jorrvaskr and into the hall, the door slamming shut in the guard's face.

Over the next few days, he found that Velwyn, despite his admonition to the boy, was constantly underfoot, following him around whenever he was back in the mead hall, sometimes at a distance, sometimes much closer, until when Vilkas stopped walking, Velwyn bumped into him, unable to stop in time. They had not yet received a reply from his parents, which did not surprise Vilkas, considering their reaction when he and Sigrid had bought the boy back to Solitude. In the meantime, Velwyn constantly attempted to prove that he could be useful, at first by hyperactively following any instructions Tilma gave him and then, to Vilkas' surprise, by bringing him a paper he'd scrawled on.

"What's this?" Vilkas asked.

"It's numbers," Velwyn said. "If you're not going to let me fight at least let me help with the accounts, _please_? I'm _wicked_ good at it, I always helped my parents. It's the only thing that I was _good_ for to them."

Vilkas examined the paper, and much to his surprise, he found that the boy was actually capable of complex equations. From a quick glance only, all of the numbers were correct. And yet he could not in good conscience allow a child to take care of the accounts, no matter how eager he was. "I'll keep it in mind," he said, and then for the next few days had to tolerate Velwyn peering over his shoulder whenever he worked at the numbers, offering suggestions that were surprisingly astute for one so young. Eventually he'd had enough of this and Vilkas, with a raised eyebrow, asked the boy where he'd learned to take care of such things. He could remember his own childhood, and at ten winters his cares could not have been further from numbers and accounts.

"I told you," Velwyn said with a shrug. "My parents only care about me because when they're gone _I'm _going to inherit the family business. So I learned how to take care of it."

Strange, the things children picked up. He remembered the lessons Jergen had drilled into the boys when they were small: to run through their exhaustion, to ignore sudden bursts of pain, to grow accustomed to the dark and the night. In the guise of games, of course, but he remembered running miles in the dark until he thought his lungs would burst, so that he could 'win' the game. The fierce determination he'd felt then. Velwyn might have had a different set of instructions, but he knew that almost painful eagerness to prove himself. He frowned, and then grunted. "Take a look at this page, then. Tell me whether you think this column of expenses are justified."

"Yes, _sir_," the boy replied, smiling so widely that it looked almost as if his lips might split.

* * *

><p>At the same time that Vilkas allowed Velwyn to try his hands with the Companions' accounts, Sigrid found herself outside of Korvanjund, the ruins she'd skirted past with Vilkas as they had gone to rescue Velwyn, that first long journey together. The first time she'd admitted to herself the curl of warmth that unfurled in her stomach when he'd almost broken her hand, as sick as it sounded. And now she joined the crouched Imperial soldiers near the sharp peaks of the ruins, reunited with Hadvar, who she had not seen since he left for Solitude and she had gone to Whiterun. How things had changed since then.<p>

"Sigrid!" he said, shocked as he saw her, and then grinned broadly as he took in her armor, the way she'd regained the weight and muscle she'd lost during her confinement. "Look at you! No scavenged wolf pelts for you now, eh, my friend? Knew you'd make a proper legionnaire." And he clapped her cheerfully on the shoulder, and she punched him back, grinning.

"Aye, Hadvar. Here I am. Alive and well. Glad to see you made it to Solitude in one piece," she whispered, as Rikke prepared the other men for the attack. "The roads aren't exactly safe for solitary travelers these days."

"I can handle a few bandits. But I'm glad you'll be with me here," he said, eyeing the spires of the ruin around them. "I don't much like the looks of this place, and I don't mean the Stormcloaks."

"I know what you mean about these old ruins," Sigrid said with a shudder, remembering the draugr swarming her in barrows across the country, their withered faces and the flowery scent of decay and rotted earth as they exhaled, but did not breathe. The Word Walls hidden in the dark, their runes calling to her against her will.

"You too, huh?" Hadvar said, scowling at Korvanjund. "I'd much rather a straight up fight than creeping around a place like this… but we'll do our duty, regardless. Come on, Legate Rikke is moving out. Don't want to be late to the party, aye?"

And the battle joined. This was where she was meant to be. This was who she was, she thought, as her warcry echoed through the ruins.

* * *

><p>Vilkas heard a whisper of it in the Bannered Mare as he took care of settling a contract with a new client; overhearing Hulda talking excitedly to Saadia about the fact that the Dragonborn recovered the Jagged Crown from the ruins of Korvanjund, snatched it right from the hands of Ulfric's men, and that the Crown is on its way to Solitude to grace the delicate white brow of Jarl Elisif the Fair. It was quite a coup: Vilkas knew better than anyone that Nords were a superstitious lot, and that such symbols, though they seemed small, could resonate. Not that anyone would agree to a King's Moot with the civil war raging around them still, but in the event that it did… Elisif had an extra advantage to add to her claim as Torygg's widow. Whether he thought she'd actually make a good High Queen was another story, and yet another reason it was wise to stay out of politics.<p>

He had avoided thinking or discussing the Silver Hand with his brother since the Hall of the Vigilant, and had instead concentrated on small jobs: animal exterminations, rescues, and the occasional hired muscle contract. There was something cathartic, to be sure, about slamming his fists into Nazeem's face until the man crumpled, and begged for mercy. Vilkas cracked his knuckles, feeling better than he had in days, and went to collect his payment from Severio Pelagia, who had hired him to force the other farm owner to stop encroaching on his land. The Imperial farmer handed it over gratefully, and offered Vilkas a mug of ale, which he declined, and walked instead across the plains towards the city of Whiterun, framed behind the noon-time sun. The holding pattern that he'd fallen into the last few weeks was confining and he chafed against the bonds of it. He needed to get out of Whiterun again, and soon.

As he crossed the bridge of the city, he looked over his shoulder and saw a familiar figure in white bone armor came striding across the fields. He waited for her at the gates, leaning against the wall, as she approached. "Well, well," he said dryly. "If it isn't the war hero herself."

"Oh, sod off," she growled, but she was grinning at him, the smile broad and genuine, one of those expressions that left him uneasy and at sea. But she was already back to business without breaking a stride, one hand reaching out to grab his wrist and tug him along. "Come on, no time to waste. Important message for the Jarl, and I think you'll want to see _this_."

"So is your plan actually _working_?" he asked, not quite able to believe it himself. It was one thing to have her claim to end the war, another to see things moving again when they had been stagnant for so long, both sides warily watching each other and waiting for the other to make the first move. Maybe all that had been needed was a catalyst, after all. And Talos knew she was that. In the small time she'd been in Whiterun she'd turned his entire world upside down.

"You'll see," she said, mysteriously, obviously enjoying the fact that he had no idea what would happen next, though he might have made an educated guess.

He followed her through the great gates of Dragonsreach, looking curiously at her as she strode past Lydia the housecarl, not even deigning to look in the woman's direction. Lydia, on the other hand, had fixed them both with an intent, furious stare, and as he approached the Jarl's dais, he could feel her eyes burning into the back of his skull. He ignored her, and watched Sigrid in her literal and metaphorical _Dovahkiin_ armor approach the throne with an arrogant tip to her chin. He remembered the first time she had come before Jarl Balgruuf, filthy and scruffy, and he and Aela had laughed at her plainness and the stink of her. She had not been embarrassed even then, standing at military attention, but to compare the two Sigrids now was like night and day. Whether an act or not, whether plain or not, it was impossible to look away from her when she walked this way. The intense expression and the tilt of her shoulders screamed confidence, compelled the eye.

"Jarl Balgruuf!" she said. "I have an important message from General Tullius."

The Jarl, slumped low in his throne, looked exhausted as he grunted. "No doubt requesting to garrison his men in my castle," he said, blue eyes cold, voice taut with unexpressed frustration. "How many times must I deny him? Well? Out with it!"

"My Jarl," Sigrid said, "This is not just a simple request for a garrison. Ulfric plans to attack Whiterun. The General wishes to lend legion troops for your aid."

"I see," Balgruuf said, though the chill had not left his voice. Vilkas could understand: the man was in a difficult position, a continuous tug-of-war with no foreseeable ending. "Give the papers to my steward."

"No," Sigrid said bluntly. "They're for your eyes only."

The Jarl's eyebrows shot up—it was clear that he was not often told _no_. "Don't be daft. Proventus is my eyes." A pause as his jaw worked, tightening in frustration, but the woman was implacable. "Just give me the damn letter. I presume once I have it I can do what I please with it? Good." He snatched it from her hands and glanced down, skimming the missive quickly at first, and then more slowly as the true nature of his dilemma began to dawn. "These are…interesting reports. Proventus, what do you make of all this? If Ulfric were to attack Whiterun…"

"As in all things, lord, caution is advised—" the steward began, and Vilkas' lip curled. The man was a coward, and did not belong in a place like Dragonsreach. He glanced sideways and saw that Sigrid had an equally disgusted look on her face as she examined the Imperial. He might have been her friend's father, but Adrianne was cut from different cloth.

"_Prey_ waits," Irileth snarled.

"My lord," Vilkas cut in, "If Ulfric is marching on Whiterun, the aid would be necessary. I don't think the walls are strong enough to withstand a prolonged siege and the guards are—city guards. Not soldiers. A war, a true battle in a war, isn't something they've been prepared for. Remember how they reacted to _one_ dragon." Burnt corpses and bloody limbs.

"You're right, as much as I hate to admit it, Companion," Balgruuf said, steepling his fingers and frowning. "I'm of a mind with Irileth. It's time to act."

"You plan to march on Windhelm?" Proventus Avenicci gasped.

"I'm not a _fool_, Proventus," Balgruuf snapped. "I mean it's time to challenge Ulfric to face me as a man, or declare his intentions." The argument continued back and forth, Proventus urging caution and with just a hint of acid to the words as his counsel was ignored, and Irileth's red eyes shining with battle-joy at the promise of finally taking a stand against Ulfric. Eventually, though the debate had raged fierce about Ulfric's murder of Torygg and the White-Gold Concordat. In the end, however, Balgruuf called for his pen and the good parchment. Despite the dithering back and forth that had occupied much of the time, Balgruuf's hand was strong and sure, the quill slashing decisively across the paper. Now that he had finally made up his mind, a weight had lifted from his shoulders. "You two," he said, fixing an imperious gaze upon the Companions. "I have a message for you to deliver to our esteemed friend the Jarl of Windhelm." And he rose from the chair, unsheathing his axe from his side.

"Jarl Balgruuf," Vilkas said, brows raising as he accepted the blade from the man. "Are you sure…?"

"Yes," the Jarl replied. "Deliver my axe to Ulfric Stormcloak."

* * *

><p>And so the two of them found themselves on the road again. Sigrid felt strangely awkward and vulnerable under his intense scrutiny, watching her when he thought she wasn't aware of it. It made the hike up the road, the chill intensifying as they moved north, more uncomfortable than it would have been. She felt that the ease they had begun to develop was vanishing rapidly, and did not know why. All of her fears, all of his worries. The tension grew to the point where she told him she was going to scout ahead and then ran off, jogging ahead until when she looked over her shoulder, he was a speck in the distance, with Balgruuf's axe hanging at his side. Somehow, the distance did not help, and now that she was alone in the silent snow drifting down from the sky, she found it much easier to concentrate on her unease. She was so distracted by her own thoughts that at first she didn't hear the whisper of a foot on the snow, didn't see the dark shape barreling towards her until she was on the ground and a burly man was stabbing viciously at the gaps between her armor and flesh with a long ebony dagger, scoring a bloody slash on her arm.<p>

Strangely, her first feeling was not one of pain, but instead of intense shame and embarrassment that they had been so wrapped up in their own concerns that they hadn't heard the assassin coming.

And then her muscle memory took over. She couldn't reach her sword, for it was still hanging in the sheath at her side, covered by the assassin's body. The man outweighed her but that had never stopped her before, and she was instantly in survival mode, twisting away from the knife that jabbed at her face, shoving his knife-arm away with her gauntleted hand and slamming her head up to smash into his nose. Hot blood gushed from it, onto her face, and he grunted in pain, but did not flinch away. She slammed her head into his face again, and again, until her head was ringing and she could hear bones crunch. Her breath was ragged in her ears as she reached up to grab his head, ignoring the wild stabs of the knife, and yanked it sideways, arching her back at the same time. The sudden painful twist of his neck and the shift of her weight threw him off, the dagger dropping from his hand. Sigrid lunged for it, snatching the blade up by the hilt and leaping on the downed assassin, his face a bloody mess. She did not recognize him, of course. Beneath the blood he had the nondescript features of a Nord farm hand, barely out of his teens. He looked up at her with cold brown eyes, unblinking in the face of death, a silent order to _do_ it.

She stabbed him in the throat with his own blade, the blood bubbling through the wound as she pulled it free again, as he coughed and gasped. It was over almost before it began.

By the time Vilkas caught up to her, the man had gasped his last and Sigrid sat in the snow next to him, motionless, wordless. His pale eyes glanced from the corpse to the woman. "Got this well in hand, I see."

Sigrid looked up at him, and shook her head. "I think it's safe to say, my friend, that someone doesn't want us to deliver this message to Ulfric Stormcloak."

"Or someone doesn't want the Dragonborn running about," he pointed out, extending a hand to help her to her feet. "This is the second assassin, isn't it?"

"Aye," she said, the smile cold and grim. "The second dead one."

"Don't scout ahead anymore today," he said shortly. "If there's another one out in the shadows, I want to be there this time."

A few months ago she would have teased him for the statement, drawled out something about him _really caring_, but now to do so would have seemed… wrong. Instead, she nodded. "Come on. We're almost there." They traveled the rest of the way in near silence, breaking it only to discuss directions and shortcuts. She could see that he was on edge, his eyes constantly sweeping the horizon, tendons standing out in his neck as he strained to catch sight of something he could not quite see. She knew the feeling: bandits were one thing, but the Dark Brotherhood another. Someone had put a contract on her head, and they would continue to come for her. _Well, get in bloody line_.

"You seemed different in Dragonsreach," Vilkas said to her, as they approached the gates of Windhelm.

"How do you figure?" she asked, slanting a sideways glance at him.

"You seem more—comfortable being the _Dovahkiin_," he said, after a pause. "Playing the part."

She grinned, and for that brief moment, the oppressive exhaustion of the last few hours lifted. "I figure I'm going to die at the end of this, one way or another," she answered with a shrug. "Might as well have some fun with it, aye?"

"And that's one way of looking at it, I suppose…"

The Palace of the Kings felt alien and cold to her still as they crossed the threshold. Even with the fires burning in their grates, it had none of the welcoming warmth of Dragonsreach, all foreboding stone and harsh angles. At the end of the room, Ulfric sat arrogantly in his chair, scowling at the huge man wearing a bear's head over his own—Galmar Stone-fist. "And what would you have me do?" Ulfric asked, sounding almost tired.

"If he's not with us, he's against us," Galmar rumbled.

"He knows that. They _all_ know that," Ulfric countered, and then looked up as the two Companions ignored Jorlief's protests ("Jarl Ulfric is a very busy man! You don't have an audience! Stop! Wait!") and strode for the throne. Galmar stepped forward, his hand on his sword, a warning tension in his shoulders. Mentally, Sigrid sized him up, and knew that it would be a rough fight with this man: he looked as though he had killed the bear that made up his helmet himself. She would slice the hamstrings first, bring him to ground. Behead him quickly if she could.

"We come bearing a message from the Jarl of Whiterun," she said.

"Is that so? I've been wondering when he'd come around." Ulfric asked, one brow lifted, as he gestured for Galmar to stand down. His second took a step back, but the threat of a sudden attack remained in his tensed muscles, the set of his feet.

Vilkas stepped forward to stand next to her, the axe in his hands as he presented it in the traditional way, the haft resting flat across his palms. Both Ulfric and his lieutenant realized instantly what it meant, but reacted much differently: Ulfric merely chuckled, while Galmar, enraged at the temerity, spat on the floor.

"Ahh. You're quite brave to carry such a message, Companions. It's a pity you've chosen the wrong side," Ulfric said, and then smiled suddenly, full of confidence as he stood from the throne, towering over them on the dais. _How like a small man_, Sigrid thought, _to make such a physical point._ "You can return this axe to the man who sent it. And tell him he should prepare to entertain... visitors."

"Ulfric Stormcloak!" Sigrid said, stepping in front of Vilkas, who had already slid the axe back into its loop, and attempted to grab her arm. She yanked it from his grasp, ignored Galmar's warning snarl. "This is your last chance to cease this foolishness. Do you honestly think that Skyrim alone can stand against the might of the Dominion? If I'm not mistaken, you know well what they are capable of doing." She met Ulfric's eye, there in the throne room, and wondered if she had not perhaps made a mistake. His eyes narrowed, furious, perhaps remembering his torment at the hands of Elenwen. _The Thalmor asset_, she thought bitterly, and that rage drove her on. "Cease this foolishness and bend your knee to Elisif. Pay your weregild for Torygg. Unite against the _true _enemy. If you truly care for Skyrim as you profess to do, you will realize this is the only damn way you're going to escape this coming storm with her intact. Your civil war is only tearing the country apart. This is what the Thalmor _want_. They've _planned _for this, Stormcloak. The elves do not forget."

Ulfric let her speak, a courtesy she had not expected, especially because Galmar looked practically apoplectic, his broad, ruddy face a brilliant red. But the Jarl looked warningly at him and then back at Sigrid, and smiled again. "Ahh, Dragonborn. So young, and so misguided. I will not bend my knee to the puppets of such a puppet-master. Where was the Empire during the Great War? Where have they been since, when the people of Skyrim cry out to worship Talos, suffering under the yoke of a cruel promise that never should have been made?" The smile had a cruel edge to it. The smile of both a fanatic and an opportunist. He might speak the idealistic words, but his eyes were cold as a slaughterfish's. "No, woman, I will not accept your offer, nor will I accept Balgruuf's message. Go now to your master, and tell him that Ulfric Stormcloak comes for him."

"No man is my master!" Sigrid snapped. "And _you_ will be stopped."

Ulfric chuckled again, and shook his head. "Oh true, I may meet my end in a dark alley with a dagger in my back, but the people have seen the truth and they will not back down."

Vilkas took Sigrid's arm, forcibly pulling her away from the throne. "We'll be seeing you soon, Jarl Ulfric."

"Sooner than you think," he growled, and waved them away.


	27. Sieges

__**AN: **Thanks again to everyone who left reviews, constructive and otherwise. Re: the Blades thing, I think it's merely just a matter of interpretation to the degree in which they are willing to go. In Esbern's mind it really IS the end of the world right now, dragonborn or not, and he's going to do whatever he needs to in order to make sure that Mundus continues on as it has. But I can understand that I didn't really give you enough face time with him for it to make sense, perhaps. :( At over 200,000 words now, I'm picking and choosing a little bit what I'm able to portray.

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><p><em>It was easy to rouse the reckless one.<em>

—The Poetic Edda, Sigurtharkvitha en Skamma, translated by Henry Adams Bellows

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><p>As they walked from Ulfric Stormcloak's palace, Sigrid muttered out of the corner of her mouth, too low for the guards to hear but within his hearing, "How long d'you think we have to get back to Whiterun before the attack?"<p>

Vilkas waited until the doors of the palace had shut behind them, a resounding clang of metal on stone, until the guards could no longer listen to their conversation so easily. As they strode down the stone plaza outside the Palace of Kings, he frowned, mulling over the problem. "If we borrow horses from the stables—and Ulundil owes me a favor, so that shouldn't be an issue—and we ride without stopping, we can make it in a few hours. I doubt they'll attack before we have a chance to deliver the axe back to Whiterun. And even so—Ulfric probably has a camp somewhere in Whiterun already, so it's just a matter of beating the bloody courier at this point. I can't imagine he'd march on the city himself—not now, he has too much to lose if someone were to slip a blade into his back on the road."

"It's a cowardly way to handle things," Sigrid said, lips pursed. Around them the snow began to fall again, the flakes catching in the glowing torchlight, melting against the flames. Her breath puffed out in a cloud. "Balgruuf challenged him man to man, and he'll send out his army to do his dirty work for him."

"Does it really surprise you?" Vilkas asked her. "You saw him there. He's not a stupid man, to rush into a battle blindly."

"No," she admitted, grudgingly. "But I'd hoped for better from a man tearing the country apart with this war." A pause, as she glanced sideways at him. "I know Aela wasn't pleased about the declaration. Why are you here with me, now, if the Companions only deal in coin?"

"Sigrid," he said, "Don't be an idiot. I'm with you because I wasn't going to let you walk into bloody Windhelm and challenge Ulfric Stormcloak by yourself. Had to hold you back the _last_ time we were before him. How was I to know this time'd be any different?" The woman was insane, that was all there was to it. Charging up mountains to fight legendary dragons and walking straight into the palace of a rebel king to challenge him to fight like a man. He could only be relieved that she had not given the man a soft blade or spat at Galmar Stone-Fist instead. That treacherous part of his brain, though the majority of him thought her insane, admired her thoughtless, fearless bravery. Skjor might have called it bravado, but he knew that in her heart, she would one day go to Sovngarde unbowed and unbroken, and the thought of it made him want to pull her aside, push her against the Windhelm wall, and kiss her senseless.

Unaware of the sudden turn of his thoughts, she laughed, the sound carrying in the sudden soft quiet of a new snowstorm. "Oh, as though having you along would change anything. Two of us against the concentrated might of the Windhelm guards and any Stormcloak soldiers in the area."

"At least you wouldn't have been alone."

"But do you… approve of my choice?"

"That's not for me to say," he said, with a shrug. "You're my shield-sister and you've made the choice already. I'll lend my sword in your aid, no matter where that takes me. Or you."

He felt uneasy under her intense scrutiny, those long-lashed gray eyes searching his face for answers that were never readily available. "Thank you," she said, after a long moment.

"Don't mention it," he muttered. "Enough of that. We're at the stables, and though Ulundil is a friend, I don't want to talk business in front of him. Not that way."

Ulundil, the Altmer stable master for whom Vilkas had done several favors—lending his blade at a steeply discounted price, for the stable master was not a rich man—was already shaking his head as he saw the two Companions approaching the building with purposeful strides. "_No_," he said. "No, no… I'm sorry, friend, but this is just not the time to call in a favor. These horses are earmarked for a buyer, he'll be here tomorrow… it's just not possible."

"It is necessary," Vilkas said, narrowing his eyes and fixing him with the flat, level glare that usually moved these types of situations along. Ulundil was not a brave man, but even cowardly men could grow a spine when enough money was involved. "You'll lend us the horses, Ulundil. They will be returned to you when they've served your purpose."

"But—" the man protested.

"Ulundil," Vilkas said curtly. "I don't like to do this, but I'll take the horses by force if I have to. They'll still be returned to you, but I would rather not go to such measures. Will you keep your end of the bargain, or will you not?"

The Altmer's throat worked, bobbing up and down in agitation. "Arivanya's not going to like this, not one bit." But in the end, continuing to mutter under his breath about the unfairness of it all, even as he saddled up the horses for them. Vilkas did not feel a pang of conscience about it; they would never make it back to Whiterun in time without the assistance of hooves beneath them, not unless they both took the beast-form—something he was not willing to do, not now, not for such an errand. The horses sensed the tension in the air, one of them wickering nervously, the other stamping its foot as Ulundil saddled him. "You'd better bring them back," the Altmer said, and Vilkas said again _I give you my word_.

And then they were on the road, finally, letting the horses work up to a trot first, then a canter, and finally an out-and-out run. Not too fast, not down these mountain roads, but for the time they pushed the horses to their limit. He found himself missing the feeling of the snow beneath his paws, the wind in his fur. The speed of the horse was a poor substitute for the burn of the wolf's muscles as he tore through the Skyrim countryside. _I'll never feel that again_, he thought, _the hooves beneath are but a poor substitute. _And then shoved the thought from his mind. Right now he must concentrate solely on reaching Whiterun before whatever courier Ulfric sent. At his side, Sigrid urged the horse on with her knees, bent over its neck. She rode confidently, and seemed untroubled by the horse. But then she had never had the years spent changing, the years of the siren song of the blood. Judging from her confidence with the horse, she'd spent those years on the back of just such a beast.

"Vilkas," she called, over the noise of the hooves and the wind, "Will the other Companions participate in the defense of the city?"

He honestly didn't know. They were a motley bunch, but they had lived in Whiterun for years now; even Ria had made the city her adopted home. "I think so," he said, after a long pause. "We may be mercenaries, but Whiterun is _ours_. I don't think that even Aela would take kindly to anyone attempting to bring down the walls. But we may worry about it when we're through, aye?"

"Aye," she said, and nudged the horse forward, overtaking his bay, looked back over her shoulder at him, "I'll race you to Whiterun."

"What's the forfeit if I win?"

She grinned. "Your choice, my friend. Your choice."

Good enough.

* * *

><p>In the end, Sigrid didn't try very hard to win, though there was no guarantee that either of them would be alive to make good on the forfeit. To his credit, he did not gloat about it, merely slid off of the horse and looked up at her, still in the saddle. A glance that held an agreeable heat. "Your forfeit, m'lady," he drawled.<p>

"I let you win," she informed him, and then looked at the formidable gates. "Well… I suppose there's no putting it off anymore. We'll have to go give Balgruuf that bloody axe. Do you want to tell him, or should I?"

"We'll go together," Vilkas said decisively. "He sent us together, after all."

They walked, side-by-side, through the gates, ignoring the curious glances of some of the citizens. The day had reached that awkward morning hour before the shopkeepers had opened their doors, but had left their homes for the day. A milling crowd that parted around them as they walked through the Plains District towards the stairs of the wind, followed by the murmured rumors that swirled around them. Evidently someone in Jorrvaskr had been talking, for the whispers had more than a tinge of fear. Adrianne Avenicci, standing at the forge, caught her eye and raised her eyebrow in question, and Sigrid nodded. The smith returned the nod, her fingers running over the head of her hammer, and smiled. _Well, at least that's one family I can count on to man the defense_. Sigrid thought of Vilkas' words as they went up the stairs to the Cloud District, that the walls could not withstand a prolonged siege; about the guards, callow men and boys untouched by war. Depending on the number and quality of Tullius' lent soldiers, they were going to have to take the lead. Somehow. For she could not let Whiterun fall: its layered districts and modest homes had become as familiar to her as the back of her hand; the small children running through its streets in the daytime begging her to play with them, the faces that had become familiar to her as her own.

The face of the guard outside Dragonsreach was white and grim beneath his helmet as he saw that they had returned with the axe. "So it's to be war, then?" he asked, as he opened the door for them. "I thought as much."

"We will hear Jarl Balgruuf's response before spreading rumor," Sigrid told him sternly, and he looked away. His face was young and unlined, ruddy. A farm boy from somewhere in the Hold, then, come to the city to make his fortune. They were all so young, such citizens. The Jarl was not at his dais when they entered, and so Sigrid gestured for Vilkas to follow her up the stairs to his quarters, or at least to the broad landing that now served as a war room.

The now-familiar spread of a table covered in parchment, dotted with flags, greeted them, along with Legate Rikke and an unfamiliar man in Legate's armor standing next to Jarl Balgruuf, pointing a finger to explain troop movements. At the sound of their footsteps, Balgruuf looked up and the weary line of his mouth tightened. Vilkas extended the axe towards him, and he took it back, his fingers curling around the haft. "You've returned with my axe, I see," he said. "I knew that would be his response. Did Ulfric say anything else?"

She noticed that at the question, both Balgruuf and Rikke watched her for the response, Balgruuf directly and Rikke from the corner of her eye. She wondered how close they had been with Ulfric when all three were legionnaires—not so strange that men and women who had fought as comrades in their youth would now find themselves bitter enemies, especially in such a small country, when it came down to it. "He said to expect visitors soon," she said, rather than voice any of her private thoughts.

"As soon as you left, I sent word to the General, who's been kind enough to lend us some of his troops and Legate Cipius here. Let Ulfric try to make it past our combined forces!" The Jarl looked down at the map, face grim, shoulders slumped. Despite the brave words, Sigrid could tell the battle had tired him. "I'll turn you back over to your legion. The legates will have a use for you. Gods be with us all."

Sigrid knew a dismissal when she heard one, and bowed her head in acquiescence. "Gods be with you, Jarl Balgruuf."

Cipius, a man with an impressive, drooping mustache that gave him a bit of a hound dog look, eyed the Companions a little suspiciously, taking in Vilkas' wolf armor and Sigrid's outfit of bones with a skeptical eye. But Rikke greeted them warmly but shortly, and that seemed to be enough to relax the other legate, who showed them both the map. "Ulfric's forces are camped not far from the city itself, just around the mountain, so I have a feeling that we're going to meet our friends before this night is out." He smiled, grimly. "You'll know when that happens. In the meantime—why don't the two of you take the time to grab a few hours' of sleep, for the Divines know you'll need it, especially after riding through the night to deliver that message. Auxiliary," he said, nodding his head sharply at Sigrid, a brief flick of his eyes at Vilkas. "Companion."

The two Companions looked at each other, each knowing that sleep would not be coming. There was too much to take care of in Jorrvaskr, preparing the Companions and making sure that the Imperials had adequately protected the walls of the city. For all she had joined the Legion, she did not necessarily trust them to take the proper care of the defenses. "Aye, Legate," she said. "We take our leave, then."

As they walked from the war room, back through the long hall of Dragonsreach, a sudden weariness descended on her shoulders, hunching them forward. She was only one woman, and for that moment the entire enterprise seemed madness. Had she really thought that she could win this entire war by herself? Madness _must_ have seized her at some point when she had not been watching. Perhaps the influence of the dragon's soul. But now, faced with the reality of a siege and a pitched battle in the city that had become her home, she wondered what she had gotten herself into. _I'm only one woman_.

A hand in her arm, the space between her gauntlets and pauldrons, snapped her out of the temporary funk. She looked up and met his pale gray eyes, intent and deadly serious. "Sigrid, you won't be alone. You'll have the Companions at your back."

"Really?" she laughed, shortly, remembering Aela's face when she'd told them she chose to take the side of the Empire. To take sides at all. "I don't know about that."

"At the very least, you'll have me," he said, the fingers curled and gripping her arm tightly before releasing her, as they walked up the steps to Jorrvaskr.. "At the very least you'll have _me_ at your back."

"I know," she said. "And don't think I'm not…" _Grateful_? "Don't think I don't know that. Don't…" Appreciate that. It was hard to say the words. Though his loyalty to his shield siblings had caused problems between them at first, it was now one of the things that endeared him most to her. That this man would be willing to lend his sword to her, facing death in a battle that would not have happened but for her actions, despite the fact that the other Companions might not follow him. Without blinking, without equivocation. She could feel a strange, unfamiliar constriction in her chest and wondered whether her armor was fixed too tightly. Whiterun did unpleasant things to her, changed her too much for her own sense of comfort.

At the doors of Jorrvaskr, she stopped him. "I'll meet you here in a few hours? I want to take a look at the Imperial forces. And maybe it will be better if you were to talk to the Companions."

"Aye," he said, as he turned from her to go inside the building, "Come for us when you're ready."

Sigrid went back down the stairs, and found that as the alarm had not yet been called, the Imperial soldiers who were not at guard posts on the walls milled around the city, checking to make sure that the citizens were properly shoring up their homes, and that the wells were being manned properly in case of a fire. She did not recognize most of the soldiers, a motley mixture of Nords and Imperials, Orcs, and even a few Bretons mixed in. As she stepped among them, asking questions about the plans for defense and the journey they'd taken from the Whiterun camp to get to the walls in time to meet the threat. Eventually, she came across Hadvar, sharpening his sword at Adrianne Avenicci's forge.

"Hadvar!" she said. "I didn't expect you to be here, not so soon after Korvanjund."

He looked up from his work, eyes shaded against the light of the morning sun, and smiled. "Yes, well, you didn't stop to ask where we'd been quartered from the first. We were in the Whiterun camp, so we returned there after you took the crown back to Solitude. We're the closest garrison."

"Well, I'm glad to know you'll be fighting alongside us, at least," Sigrid said, eyeing the other Imperial soldiers a little suspiciously. "These men worth their salt?"

Hadvar laughed at that, and tested the edge of the sword on the tip of his finger. A neat, thin line of blood welled up at the point of contact, and he swore, but looked rather pleased nonetheless. Raising an eyebrow at Sigrid, he snorted. "Worth their salt, auxiliary? These are the finest soldiers you'll meet in all of Tamriel." The pride shone in his broad, honest face, the sad hound's eyes gleaming with it. It was in that moment she realized that, despite his wide shoulders and legionnaire's armor, Hadvar was several years younger than she, and that this was probably his first siege. He was too young to have participated in the Great War, and Skyrim had not seen conflicts on a larger scale since then. Too young to have spent time in the trenches, too young to have slept next to the corpses of his comrades for fear of giving away his position if he moved. Her stomach sank, and she wondered how many of the legionnaires from the Whiterun camp were of an age with him. They had seemed a mixed enough group.

"I'll have to take your word for it," she said carefully, though she wished that his words had been more reassuring.

"I have been meaning to ask you, Sigrid," he said, as he stood from the grindstone and they began walking towards the gates, where men were building barricades from dry wood staves. "That wall in Korvanjund—the one with the glowing runes—what the hell _was _that?"

"Oh, that," Sigrid said, suddenly uncomfortable. "They're… walls, yes, but they have words of the dragon language on them. When I read them, I can understand the meaning of the word, and use it to do… things."

"I looked at the wall after it—grabbed your attention and _I _didn't understand a damn thing," Hadvar said, eyeing her suspiciously now. "You're pullin' my leg, I think."

"I wouldn't make up something so bloody outlandish," Sigrid grumbled. "Trust me. It's to do with being the Dragonborn. It sounds mad, so I'm not even going to bother explaining."

"What use are _words_?" he asked, still skeptical. "Seems a bit unbelievable."

"You don't believe me?" Sigrid said, feeling suddenly mischievous. Maybe a bit of levity was all that she needed to get through the rest of this bloody day. "Let me show you what use _words_ can be."

"Aye?"

She did not respond. Instead she let the meaning of the Korvanjund word wall swell in her throat, mixed with the memories of the time-wound at the throat of the world. Time, long and slow, stretching like melted toffee in the air around her. Time, malleable and manipulated, drawn out beyond the normal minutes, molded beneath her hands like molten iron below the hammer of a smith. Time, a toy for her amusement, to be used as she saw fit. "_Tiid!_" she Shouted, a slow burn in her throat like heated honey, and the world slowed around her while she continued moving at the same pace. She knew but one word of the three required to fully slow time, so it was only a short effect, but she made the most use of it. With one foot she kicked out, sweeping Hadvar's feet out from underneath him, watching him topple to the ground in excruciatingly slow motion as she strolled around to his rear. Time snapped back into place, the glow fading, the sounds that had seemed deeper, long and stretched, suddenly a buzz at normal speed, and Hadvar lay on the dirt road, totally flummoxed.

"What in Oblivion was that?" he muttered to himself, before picking himself up and catching sight of her, behind him, smirking. "_That_ is what a 'shout' is? You were moving so fast I could barely see you! You were a bloody _blur_."

"That's a Shout," she confirmed. "Anyone can study them, but I learn them… differently. And _that's_ what use a word can be, my friend."

Before Hadvar could respond, a guard came running up to them, his face creased with worry. "Please!" he exclaimed. "I'm going to have to ask you to stop that—that shouting. It's making people _nervous_. And we can't afford that right now, not with all of these soldiers jumpy enough already."

"It won't happen again," Sigrid said solemnly, ignoring both the guard and Hadvar as he bit back a smile.

"So… _Dragonborn_, huh? Was it your ma or your da that was the dragon?"

"Neither, 's far as I know," Sigrid said, with a snort. She had never thought about it, really: she knew her father came from a long line of Frost-Borns, all of whom had lived in the woods of Winterhold since almost its founding, centuries before the Great Collapse changed the region forever. Doubtful that the blood came from his side of the family. And her mother… Her father had never liked to speak of her. He'd treasured her memory, guarding it jealously as if it were a secret jewel. "Never knew my ma, but I think Da would have mentioned something about it if she'd been covered in scales and given to burning down villages."

Hadvar nodded solemnly. "It would probably be something worth mentioning, aye." He exhaled, more of a whistle than anything. "Never thought I'd see the day, to be honest. Brother fighting brother, and legends come to life. If I hadn't seen it myself I wouldn't've believed it."

"And I imagine," Sigrid said grimly as she looked out onto the plains, currently devoid of soldiers and with refugees streaming across it towards the safety of the walls, "that you'll see a hell of a lot more if you stick around."

* * *

><p>When he left Sigrid at the steps of Jorrvaskr, Vilkas ran through the mental checklist needed to prepare Jorrvaskr for battle. While it was unlikely that an invading force would breach the walls—there was a drawbridge specifically to prevent that possibility, if properly defended—he wanted to ensure that the hall would be ready in the event of fighting in the streets. Even if things did not get to such a point, there were other preparations to be made: seeing who remained in Whiterun, instructing Tilma to stay inside until the battle was over, and making sure that Vignar Gray-Mane did not remain in the hall. Though the Revered, as he had come to be known, had seen the rise and fall of at least half a dozen Harbingers, he was also a staunch supporter of Ulfric Stormcloak. And while Vilkas did not think that they had any treachery to fear from him, he also did not want to take any chances. Luckily or unluckily, many of the Companions were away: when Sigrid had returned the first time, Athis and Torvar had been headed to Markarth; Aela was off in Falkreath. Ria, Njada, and Farkas alone remained, Ria eager to take part in the defense, Njada less eager, Farkas ready to fight without question.<p>

The only loose ends now were Kodlak and Velwyn. The old man could barely make it up the stairs anymore due to the pain in his joints, so at least Vilkas didn't have to worry about him attempting to take on forty thousand Stormcloaks by himself. Velwyn, on the other hand, was a different problem all together. As soon as Vilkas came into the hall he found the boy following closely at his heels. "Can I fight with you? Or at least water and fetch arrows for the soldiers? Huh? Huh? _Please_?"

"No," Vilkas said. "We haven't yet heard from your parents, and if anything happens to you now, I'm sure we'll be blamed."

"But I _want_ to—"

A sudden burst of inspiration struck him, and Vilkas looked the boy up and down. "Actually… there may be something you could do for us. It's a very important mission."

"What is it?" Velwyn asked, both painfully eager and just a little bit suspicious, his wide eyes fixed on Vilkas' face with all of the hopeful energy a child could manage.

"You're going to guard the Harbinger and make sure that no harm comes to him, in the event that the walls are breached. How does that sound?" Vilkas asked, fighting to keep a straight face. It was really the most elegant solution: Kodlak could show the boy how to use a dagger and Velwyn would be able to fetch anything that the Harbinger needed without Kodlak having to trouble himself during the fighting.

"_Promise_?" Velwyn demanded, still suspicious.

"Aye, I promise," Vilkas said. "Let's go down and you can meet Kodlak."

"_Wicked_," Velwyn breathed.

They found Kodlak seated in his chair, picking at the breakfast Tilma had brought down for him and flipping through one of the many books that he kept spread out on his table. He looked up as the man and the boy entered his inner sanctum, though at first he did not seem to notice Velwyn. "I've found it, Vilkas!" he said intently, his eyes wide and shining. "I've found the answer."

"You've—what?" He could hear exactly how flummoxed his voice sounded and couldn't bring himself to care. After all of these weeks of searching, out of the blue. Velwyn was watching them, curiously, aware something was happening but unsure of what, exactly, it was, and for a moment Vilkas feared that Kodlak would let slip their secret in his excitement.

"Now is not the time, of course," Kodlak said, glancing at the boy and fixing him with the look that Vilkas could clearly remember from his childhood, the look that had made him feel about two feet tall. "We'll talk more when this battle's done. In the meantime… you're the boy who's been stirring up so much trouble, aye?"

"Er…" Velwyn said, bashfully, for once totally lost for words.

"Harbinger, I had thought that young Lucilius could… guard you. During the battle." He met Kodlak's eyes, silently entreating the older man to understand what he was attempting. Of course he should have known that Kodlak would instantly see the true picture.

The old man nodded sternly at Velwyn, his facade not cracking a moment. "Of course," he said. "Although I warn you, boy, I take such responsibilities very seriously. I don't tolerate backtalk from my men. You _do_ know how to use a blade?"

Velwyn was staring at Kodlak, wide-eyed, and Vilkas could almost see the stars in his eyes. "Y-yes, Harbinger. Uh, I mean… I have a dagger…"

"I'll leave the two of you here," Vilkas said. He hoped that the Harbinger wouldn't feel too insulted by the boy being dumped there; it had to smart at his pride, to have fallen so far. In years gone by, Kodlak would have been first out onto the ramparts, and now he was forced to stay below-ground watching a child as the battle raged around him, Sovngarde lingering just out of his grasp. In Kodlak's situation Vilkas might have done something ill-advised, to avoid the shame of it. Although if what the old man had said was true—that he might really have found a cure—it made sense to avoid the risk of death for a little longer, to attempt to reach Sovngarde instead of the Hunting Grounds. But for now he put it from his mind, and went to find his brother.

The air of Whiterun smelled of fear and tension, and battle preparations: barrels of stinking, rotting garbage to toss down on the invaders and hot oil boiling in huge vats, ready to dump over the walls if necessary; the sharp sparks of grindstones on metal. Even now, Eorlund's forge was still working, cranking out extra arrowheads and blades, the old man's back shining with sweat, unbowed. Vilkas coughed, but it was impossible to clear his nose of the stench of it all, even when the wind changed. Instead, he concentrated on making sure the remaining Companions were in order. Unsurprisingly, Farkas was already prepared for battle. He stood outside of the mead hall, idly cracking his knuckles and squinting out over the horizon as though looking for the invading force himself. Even with the brothers' sharp eyes, not a movement could be seen except for the occasional giant lumbering along in the distance.

"Don't much like waiting," Farkas said, as he frowned out at the plains.

"Aye," said Vilkas, standing next to him. "But I think we'll see visitors soon enough."

"Let them come," Farkas said, and smiled.

By the time the sun sank from the high noontide peak and then further below the horizon, scouts sent out into the countryside returned with news that the Stormcloak camp was on the move, the tents stripped and the fires doused, the men marching in columns towards the city walls at a double pace. The whisper didn't even need to spread through the town: as soon as the anxious citizens caught sight of the scouts slipping through the gates, grim-faced and sweaty, the rumors spread out of control immediately, a burning tundra-fire eating up everything in its path. The soldiers could be seen in the distance, marching inexorably closer, some of them wheeling carts that held large catapults, officers on horses, runners darting amongst their number with orders and messages.

At the sight of the scouts and the panic, Vilkas went with Sigrid and the rest of the Companions to Dragonsreach, ignoring the protests of the guards at the gates. They made their way straight for the Jarl's quarters: the guard inside the castle had dispersed enough that no one stopped them. In the small room, the discussion was already hotly under way about the best means to proceed. The discussion was slow at first, as Cipius filled them in on the relative strength that could be expected of the Stormcloak force—not as many as should have been sent to capture a city the size of Whiterun, especially with the extra troops now garrisoned there. _An error of judgment on Ulfric's part_, Vilkas realized. The message had goaded him into acting more hastily than he should have. In that moment, he suddenly felt confident that the siege would not end with the fall of the walls. More logistics: first defense at the gates, and if those barricades fell, protecting the drawbridge at all costs. The Companions did not participate, but listened; Njada seemed particularly unimpressed by the Imperials, while Ria listened starry-eyed to the plans and discussions.

A tribune gestured angrily at Cipius. "The outer walls are stronger," she argued, "we can hold them there."

"But they have catapults," Cipius cut in.

"Sir…" a scout attempted to interrupt, sidling into the room.

"Not now!" Cipius snapped.

"Where did they get catapults?" Jarl Balgruuf demanded, and groaned. "The city walls are already falling apart as it is, I haven't had the spare gold to shore them up…"

"The scouts tell me he's loading them with fire," Cipius said grimly.

"So he wants to take the city with the walls intact, aye?" Balgruuf replied, and grunted. "Ulfric was ever a strategist. How long until they arrive?"

"Sir!" the soldier spoke up. "Not only are they on the move but they're _here_—they'll be at the gates any moment!"

"Why didn't you say so immediately?" Cipius demanded. Vilkas couldn't help but roll his eyes: he had assumed that the commanders had more awareness of the troop movements, but apparently not.

"Sir!" the soldier protested. "I _tried_." At that, Sigrid met his eyes disbelievingly.

"This is it! Time to see what these Stormcloaks are made of…" someone muttered.

"They're here in force," Cipius told Vilkas and and the Companions. "If you're going to assist us, auxiliary, you'd best get _moving_. Get down to the front line. This is it. We _must_ hold the city. Move it!"

Sigrid made the legionnaire's salute, a curled fist thumped against the left side of her chest plate, fingers rapping against the carved bones of her armor. And without further preamble, she led them out to the town. In the time that they had spent in Dragonsreach, the siege equipment had been hastily set up, then men hastily arrayed in front of the town. Explosions rocked Whiterun as the catapults, at a greater distance, did their damage. Huge balls of flaming tar came winging over the walls, and the _thump_ of the catapults' release coupled with the impact of the flames sounded along with the rattling of blades and the occasional explosions from the hands of battle mages. He could see Farengar Secret-Fire, perched atop the walls, well-guarded by a contingent of soldiers, his hands sparkling with lightning—even a milk drinker like the court wizard felt the need to participate in the defense. The Companions spread out, Vilkas and Sigrid jogging through the main gates and towards the barricade, Farkas peeling off to make sure that no Stormcloak soldiers attempted to flank them at the gates.

"Brings back memories," Sigrid said, with a short bark of a laugh.

Though he had never participated in a siege of this scale, he had been through enough battles, enough stormings of bandit forts packed with enemies that he had a fairly clear idea of the chaos that was about to follow. Both he and Sigrid jumped out of the way as a burning ball of tar fell short of its target, exploding on the ground next to them, splattering hot on their armor. "Memories of _this_?" he said, spitting out a low curse as another burning projectile came hissing through the air above them, splattering against the stone wall.

"You should see what Breton battle mages can come up with on a bad day," Sigrid said lightly. "Ulfric's boys are lacking imagination in comparison." In that moment, the overwhelming urge to grab her and kiss her senseless, there among the burning tar and the impending battle, a combination of fierce pride and a strange tenderness towards a woman who had known little of it in her life. Hell, _he_ had known little of it, and the impulse turned his stomach uncomfortably. Instead of analyzing it further or giving in to the urge, he followed her, jogging to the spot in the barricades where Rikke stood at the top of the gate before the assembled men, fierce and proud, her sword raised as she addressed them.

"This is it, men! This is an important day for the Empire and for the Legion, and for all of Skyrim. This is the day we send a message to Ulfric Stormcloak and the rebel Jarls who support him!" Ragged cheers punctuated her words as the explosions around them intensified, as they could see the Stormcloaks encroaching over the plains, steadily moving towards the barricade. "But make no mistake. What we do here today, we do for Skyrim and her people. By cutting out the disease of this rebellion, we will make this country whole again! Ready now! Everyone, with me! For the Empire! For the Legion!" The eager battle cries of the legionnaires and the guards alike echoed around her as they pushed eagerly forward.

Vilkas and Sigrid looked at each other, understanding each other without words: keep the defenses strong by taking the offensive. She leapt over the barricade, vaulting it easily, her left hand finding purchase in between the wooden spikes. He followed her, and together, they moved to confront the Stormcloaks as they came screaming towards the barrier, the foot soldiers first, and archers behind them. His sword a blur as he confronted the first of the soldiers, swinging a war hammer at his head. Vilkas leapt sideways, using the momentum to whip the sword around, cutting deeply into the Stormcloak's side, through the light cuirass and skin alike. The man dropped with a choked-off scream, but there was not the time to make sure he _stayed_ down. A quick kick in the head with a booted foot to move the corpse, and then whirling to face the next foe.

He could see, in the distance, Farkas and Njada cutting their way through a swathe of soldiers, the Stone-Arm's sword wrecking destruction in her path; his brother's huge frame clearing a way almost effortlessly, as the Stormcloaks in his path went down, unable to withstand him.

And as for Vilkas, he fought with the woman at his back, her own sword and shield a blur as she used the defensive weapon for offense, the edge of it whipping out fast as lightning to catch a Stormcloak soldier in the face, the blunt edge chopping hard into the skin and bone. She was all grim-faced concentration now, none of the taunts that she normally used. Instead, as the soldiers closed in on them, she took a deep breath and Shouted: "_Fus ro dah!"_ He could feel the concussion from the blast of force in his bones, but she did not stagger despite the rag-doll bodies of their enemies flying away from them, landing on the ground with the crack of bone and armor. As he stared at the crumpled forms a Stormcloak managed to get a lucky slash in with his sword, and Vilkas swore, instantly back to attention, ignoring the white-hot pain of the wound. The man lunged for him again, a mocking smile on his face, and he fought the urge to change right then and there, to let the wolf rip through his skin and then the soldier's skin, his bone and flesh, to tear him apart. He did not—controlled himself, the sweep of his sword precise, a feint and a lunge, pushing past the man's guard through sheer force, tearing the sword from his hands with a twist of his wrist, and chopping back again, cutting down the now defenseless soldier.

The explosions around them had not lessened, both from the catapults and Farengar's hands, the lightning crackling from the walls to strike unfortunate Stormcloaks as they attempted to breach the barricade. Though Vilkas and Sigrid were a blur, circling to guard each other's backs, swords taking down anyone foolish enough to come near them, eventually the force of numbers alone streamed them past the barricade and through the first gate. "Fall back!" Rikke yelled, silhouetted below the silver moonlight and illuminated by the flashes from explosions all around her. "Defend the drawbridge! _Don't_ let them through!"

The arrows flew around them as the guards on the walls took aim at the invaders, some of them striking vulnerable flesh. The screams of the wounded echoed around them as they ran back towards the gates, Vilkas taking the time to meet a war hammer-wielding Stormcloak head on, rushing forward before the man could get a swing in, knocking him to the ground with a jolt of his shoulder and then stabbing downward, the sword piercing his face, the spurt of blood and teeth and the dying groan of the enemy calling forth the wolf spirit, despite himself. He was fighting now with the viciousness of instinct, lost to everything around him except for the sword and the blood and the deaths they wrought, and for a time he did not even realize that time passed, aware only of the burn of his muscles and the jar of blows caught on his blade.

"Vilkas!" A voice cut through the battle-haze, but did not totally distract him yet. The Stormcloak corpse slid from the sword. "Vilkas!" the voice said again. A woman's voice. Familiar. Abruptly, the world snapped back into focus, the blood lust fading. He was surrounded by corpses, and Sigrid met his eyes across them, her face stained and smudged with dirt and blood and smoke. She looked as filthy as he felt. "Vilkas," she said, for the third time, seeing now that she had caught his attention. "We won. They're routed." And a brief, fierce smile flashed across her mouth, a gleam of gold in her eye, as they took in the destruction around them: not only corpses, but dead horses and the wrecks of the catapults, the fires still burning brightly as soldiers dumped water over them.

"So we did," he said. He had not doubted it, not from the moment that he had learned the number of Ulfric's men. But the pitched battle had not been easy: he could see both Imperial soldiers and men in the uniform of the Whiterun guards scattered on the ground as well, some accompanied by mourning comrades. A grim reminder of the price of battle. And though the blood lust had faded, the adrenaline had not, the animal instinct to destroy everything in his path, though it already lay in ruin. And as he and the woman walked towards the gathered survivors, and he met her eye surreptitiously and saw the gold flashes there, he knew that she understood. _Jorrvaskr_. _Now_. But there remained formalities before he could haul her off. Farkas and the other Companions had joined them there, and his brother was eyeing him with a combination of amusement and suspicion. Vilkas shot him a warning look.

"Revel in your victory here today, even as the gods revel in your honor! They already sing of your valor and skill! The halls of Sovngarde are no doubt ringing with your phrases!" Balgruuf's voice rang strong and true over the assembled soldiers, the men still alive. The corpses of their fellows lay on the ground around them, however, a grim reminder of the cost of the heroic words. "In defeating these Stormcloak traitors you have proven the hollowness of their cause and the wrongness of their cause. The citizens of Whiterun are forever in your debt. But Ulfric will not stop here. No! he will continue to strike out against any true Nord who remains faithful to the Empire. He will continue to sow discord and chaos wherever he can. And so, we must each one of us, continue to fight this insurrection, lest our fallen brothers have died for naught. Lest our honor be lessened should we allow these bloodthirsty beasts to prowl our lands. Carry on men, my gratitude and blessings go with you. For Whiterun! For the Empire!" The Jarl's speech was met with cheers from the men, but his blue eyes were troubled as he looked out over them. The change to war speeches from his caution of mere days before must have weighed heavy on his shoulders, but he did not falter as he climbed down from the gate, heading towards Vilkas and Sigrid before trudging up the hill towards his palace, towards his ruined city.

* * *

><p>The Jarl's speech left her strangely cold, the worrying roil in the pit of her stomach unabated as she watched him climb wearily down the stairs. She had had these feelings before after certain pitched battles, but never so intensely as she did now, the urge to drag Vilkas back to Jorrvaskr and push him against a wall. <em>Does it have something to do with the beast blood? With the moon? <em>Until this day she had not felt the call of the blood so strongly since the first night, but something about the desperation of the defense, the battle-joy of fighting side-by-side with a man she trusted to watch her back, a man whose blade dealt death with ease and confidence and _honor_, had affected her more than she had expected, more than she had been prepared for. She had been caught off guard, blind-sided by fierce, primitive emotions. _Can you even truly blame the blood? Was this not always within you?_ But there were formalities to accomplish before she could retreat. _If I should even give in to such a call at all_, she thought sourly. She was not much accustomed to analyzing her emotions, but these days to act so blindly could carry consequences far-reaching beyond herself. It was hard, though, to ignore them when he was looking at her in such a way, as though he could devour her with his eyes. As though he _was_ devouring her in his mind already, the heat strung between them like one of the fiery explosions that had rocked the town mere hours before.

"Thank you for your role in all of this," Balgruuf said to her, seemingly oblivious to the heated undercurrent running between them. "But for your timely message and assistance, the battle would not have been won and the walls might have fallen to Ulfric's men. For the use of your blades in battle, Companions, gold for your coffers. And as for you—my thane, I've already given you permission to purchase property within the city walls, but I understand from Proventus that you have yet to take the offer."

Sigrid stood, intensely uncomfortable beneath the scrutiny of those who stood around her and the strange, intense roil of blood in her veins, almost as though she could feel every ounce of it moving through her. It was difficult to concentrate on the Jarl, when she wanted so many contradictory things: to rush out onto the plains beneath the moons and take the beast form (though her brain screamed _no, that's a terrible, terrible idea_) or to simply haul the man back to the mead hall and push him over into bed, filth and blood and all. "Your Grace," she told the Jarl, "I had been given permission, yes, but I have not yet saved up the septims required."

"Nonsense," Balgruuf said. "After this, after all you've done for the city… Talk to Proventus. Breezehome is yours. You've earned it, for the aid you've given to Whiterun."

"Thank you, Jarl," Sigrid managed, shell-shocked by the generous offer. She had seen Breezehome—a modest dwelling just beyond the city gates—but it would be more than enough to suit her purposes. _If you even wish to leave Jorrvaskr_…

"And my thanks as well, Jarl," Vilkas cut in. "We will speak to Proventus about payment. And you will excuse us. I need to make sure that Jorrvaskr remained undamaged during the attack."

"Yes, yes…" the Jarl said. "Gods be with you."

"And you," Sigrid said, and began to walk back towards the town now that the drawbridge had lowered. Though the walk was a familiar one, it felt endless: she could feel Farkas' eyes on her as she hurried away, uncomfortable under his scrutiny, so much so that she took off for Jorrvaskr at a jog, pushing her exhausted limbs to their limit, solely to avoid that questioning stare. And she knew that Vilkas would follow, as surely as she knew that a wolf would track its prey. Not that she intended to go quietly, of course.

The mead hall appeared undamaged, thankfully, and quiet, the living quarters as cool and calm as one could hope after such a battle. She shoved her way through the door of his room, closing it behind her, and began to take off her armor, armor she had worn for over a day. She was filthy and exhausted, tired yet still full of a yearning energy that had not reached an outlet. It was a relief merely to let go of the weight of the bone armor, to strip down out of the clothes caked with sweat and blood and battle dust, to stretch out her weary limbs free of encumbrance. But at the sound of the door shifting on its hinges, more pressing concerns took over; she moved instantly into action, grabbing him and shoving him against the wall, the plates of his armor digging into her bare skin as their mouths met in a painful, eager clash of teeth and tongue. She could taste the blood there, unsure whether it was hers, his, someone else's, and found she didn't care, concentrating only on getting closer to him, reassuring herself that they were both alive, both in one piece. Assuaging the tempestuous surge of feeling in her guts and her chest, that primal desire to battle him into submission.

"You mad woman," he said, when he finally pulled away, pushing her off of him in an attempt to gain enough space to unbuckle his armor. "Setting the dry tinder of the civil war aflame. Of course you'd be the one responsible for a siege of my home."

"Had to be done," she said fiercely, hands suddenly clumsy as she tried to help him along, fingers tugging at his gauntlets. "And besides. Don't tell me you didn't enjoy it, my dear wolf. This is what you were _made_ for—" And he cut her off with another messy kiss, and she decided that words and thoughts could wait a little longer, this night. Instead she concentrated on getting him out of the armor, or at least enough of it so that she could push him against the wall again, knowing they would never make it to the bed, not this night, not with his hands running warm down her body, rough and just painful enough to excite her. Not with the urge she had suddenly to mark him as hers, to claim him. _Mine. Mine. Mine, _growled the primal voice inside of her, whether it was the beastblood or her own latent fury. And when he finally entered her, or more accurately when with a shift up onto her toes she impaled herself upon him, shoving him against the wall for support, her mouth on his neck and her hand gripping his shoulder until she thought it might give way under the force of her, she knew that she had done it.

And she was too far gone to care about the consequences.


	28. Realizations

**AN: **Just a reminder that if you're reading and enjoying the story, please let me know what you think! Even a brief sentence makes a huge difference. :)  
>And re: "milk drinking"—aren't there enough Stormcloak stories, eh? It's possible for a character to love Skyrim and still support the Empire—!<p>

Also I wrote the first scene (and some of the others) listening to Florence + The Machine's "Drumming Song," which is... pretty accurate, yeah.

* * *

><p><em>She greeted the hero helmed and kissed him,<br>The warrior's heart to the woman turned._

—The Poetic Edda, from_ Helgakviða Hundingsbana, _translated by Henry Adams Bellows

* * *

><p>In the aftermath of it all, they stood looking at each other in the dark, covered in blood and sweat, he still half-in half-out of his clothing and armor, slumped bonelessly against the wall. Under his hand, her bare skin was warm, almost burning, and he could not tell if it was from exertion or the beastblood or battle. "You're going to be the death of me, one of these days," he said dryly, when he could speak again. "And I don't know about you, but I am going to take a damn bath before we discuss <em>anything<em> else. Or do anything else."

"I'm not going to argue with that," she said, still a little breathless, eyes crinkled in a smile as she pulled away from him. "You first. I need to sit down."

He padded down the hall, leaving her in the room for the moment. He had noticed on his way into the mead hall that Jorrvaskr remained undamaged, though Heimskr's house had been destroyed by a stray projectile. It was hard not to think with a savage sort of joy of the ranting, dogmatic priest sleeping beneath the sky and stars, his little cottage totally wrecked by the Stormcloak barrage. _Petty_, thought Vilkas, but found that he didn't much care, especially not after remembering Heimskr's face turning purple and spittle flying from his mouth as he screamed, _the Dragonborn, like a willing whore_… But he put that from his mind, too, as he made his way to the bath. Rarely had he been so relieved that Jorrvaskr had been built over a hot spring as he was now, allowing himself to sink into the welcoming heat of the water, to let it relax his weary body and aching limbs. To clean the filth of battle from his skin, though in some measure, it would always remain just beneath it. Vilkas closed his eyes and sank beneath the water, even the quiet ambient sounds of the room disappearing as he did so. He could hear only the weight of the water, the echo of his heart in his ears.

Stray thoughts warred with each other for his attention, gradually coalescing into sense, helped along as he concentrated on his heart, the blood moving through his veins, in remaining below the skin of water atop him. The drumming in his ears. Kodlak had found a cure, but seemed willing to wait to enact it until… when, exactly? After so many years of searching, his reticence seemed uncharacteristic. And what did it mean for him—he had tried to resist the call of the blood as best he could, but in the end, it still had him in its grip. He might not have taken the beast-form but he was ever-conscious of the wolf beneath his skin. And now… now he would be facing life without it, without that constant companion. Going through his life as blind as a newborn. The finality of it hit him like a blow, but strangely, he could move through it. The thought discomfited, and the vague unease of a new life lingered in the back of his skull. He did not look _forward_ to it. But he found the idea… not unappealing. As he grew older the violent emotion that came with the blood wore him down, like the sea against a cliff wall. Perhaps it would not be so terrible to be free, even if he had not expected it to ever really come to pass. But it would. And he would adapt with it, despite his fears that his fury and rage were _Vilkas_ and not _the wolf._

He broke the surface, a deep breath replenishing the air in his lungs, and sank again. And then there was the eternal, thorny problem of the woman. Sigrid. _What is she to me? _he thought, and suddenly, as clear as an empty soul gem, he knew. He could dance around it all that he liked, but the truth looked him straight in the eye and he could not look away. There was only one explanation for the complicated tangle of emotions that seized him whenever he thought of her, his mixed tenderness and pride and frustration; the way she occupied his thoughts even when it was incredibly inconvenient of her to do so, the way that her ugly features had become something fascinating to memorize instead of repulse him. It was so simple, so obvious. So obvious he couldn't understand why it had taken him so long to realize it; couldn't understand how long it had even been something to realize.

_I'm in love with her._

Shit.

_Shit_.

He lay motionless in the pool of water. No. This could not happen. It had never happened. He loved his brother, of course. He loved his shield-siblings. But he did not fall _in_ love. Falling _in_ love resulted in vulnerabilities, holes in one's heart, opening yourself to the possibility of loss. The possibility of becoming less than you were. He remembered Aela's grief at the loss of Skjor. He remembered now the image of his mother's face after the necromancers killed his father, and knew that that heart-rending look, that twist of her mouth and the fight abruptly sagging from her body, was the reason he had never fallen. _They die, and you can do nothing to save them. They leave, and leave you behind._ He would not know what to do if something happened to Farkas, but he didn't have a choice about having a brother, he could only do what he could to protect him. He _did_ have a choice about purposely showing the world a soft underbelly, though, and had chosen to remain aloof all of the thirty-something years of his life. Until now. Not that it had been a conscious choice. How could he have possibly been so stupid? So willfully blind?

_You bloody idiot_.

She could not know, of course. He did not know what her feelings for him might be, but he would never be able to tell her the truth. Not here, not now. Too much at stake. Though he did not know whether their current course of action was sustainable, he could not _stop_ taking her to bed, relying on her sword in the field, her wry sense of humor to make him laugh. All of those things had somehow slotted into his life so that he could not imagine being able to ignore her. But what else could he do…? The sense of foreboding that had come over him after the night in the lighthouse returned. He could only see this ending tragically. A wolf and a legendary hero brought to life, fated to battle the World-Eater himself? The only way it could end was death. _My life is not a bloody song_, he thought furiously. _My life is not a bard's tragedy. _But the world had no answers for him. It never , he stood up from the pool, dripping wet but finally clean, and found that while he had been in the water Tilma had left him a clean pair of clothes at the edge of the stone edge of the baths. He realized that it was probably almost dawn now. That he had been awake, riding and fighting and fucking, for at least three days.

_Kodlak can wait. All of this can wait._

He was only one man, after all.

When he returned to his room, Sigrid had gone, and he found himself strangely grateful for her absence.

For the first time in several days Vilkas allowed himself to stop thinking, and to sleep.

* * *

><p>She left before he came back to the room, feeling strangely unbalanced, and not just because she was exhausted. Things seemed to be changing more quickly than she had expected. Not only the desperate need that had driven her into his room that night, but the fact that she had been given property outright. That had been her original goal in joining the Companions, after all—saving up enough money to buy the home that she had been promised after killing Mirmulnir. And now she could take whatever money she'd saved and move out of Jorrvaskr if she wished, quit the Companions, and never be beholden to anyone except herself for the rest of her life. Hell, she could even retire and live out the rest of her days in Whiterun after the dragons were vanquished, if she wanted to. If she really needed the money Adrianne could always use help at the forge, and her needs were not so great that she would require more money than the few septims she could make doing that. She could be <em>free<em>. It was everything she had ever wanted out of life.

So why did she feel so… unsure about accepting it?

Sigrid made her way to the baths, relieved that he had finished by the time she got there, that they did not pass each other in the halls. That Ria and Njada had collapsed in the whelps' room, and that Farkas seemed to have already retired. Though she had been awake for several days, strangely, she did not feel weary as she slid into the comforting embrace of the water, scrubbing herself clean of the filth that had caked her skin. What did it mean, to feel so ambivalent about leaving Jorrvaskr? She had never been a woman to change her mind so easily or doubt her own desires. But this made no sense, not in the least. _Except_, the treacherous voice in her brain whispered, _it would be rather lonely, to move into Breezehome…_

"Sigrid?" a woman's voice said, cutting through the cool blackness that surrounded her.

"Huh?" Sigrid said, startled, and realized that while she had been agonizing over her strange new uncertainty, she had fallen asleep in the baths for the second time in as many months. _I must have been more tired than I thought_. She found her skin felt soft and wrinkled, like a grape left out too long in the sun. _Or a corpse too long in the river_, she thought with wry humor. But she was still alive, though she felt as though she'd been run over by a mammoth, perhaps because of the odd angle her head had been resting on the bath stairs, or perhaps because of the pounding she'd taken from a war hammer earlier in the day as the man attacked her from behind as she fought his comrade in front.

Aela looked down at her with a strange combination of humor and disdain. "Shield-sister," the Huntress said, raising an eyebrow as she, too, shed her clothes and walked down into the long, broad pool, totally unembarrassed by her nakedness, or Sigrid's. Of course, the Huntress had nothing to be embarrassed about: despite her many years as a warrior, she had been more successful at avoiding catching the blades of her opponents on her skin than Sigrid had been, her lithe fighter's frame relatively unscarred. "I've heard you and the rest of our shield-siblings held off an invading army yesterday."

"Yesterday…?" Sigrid said. "What time is it? I mean, what _day_ is it?"

"It's very early Middas morning," Aela said, and smirked as she lounged in the replenished warm water, the circulating spring and the heated pipes keeping it clean despite the fact that Sigrid had spent several hours sleeping off a battle in it as well. She gave a small, satisfied sigh. "But I _do_ wish to hear more of this battle."

"There's not much to tell," Sigrid said, with a shrug, as she stood and walked from the pool, shaking herself off like a dog, and went to procure a towel. "Ulfric didn't send enough men. We fought. They lost. Didn't even get past the drawbridge, in the end."

"I don't know if he had them to spare, quite honestly," Aela said, also shrugging, though her movement was an elegant roll of the shoulders rather than Sigrid's awkward motion. "They're spread out all over the country, and on such short notice… but enough of strategy. I heard you've been granted property in the city." And she fixed Sigrid with a keen green gaze, as though by merely watching her like she'd watch her prey, she could somehow divine what Sigrid intended to do about it. "That's quite an honor, shield-sister."

Sigrid, wrapped in the towel to keep off the chill of the room now that she was out of the water, looked down at her legs, scarred and inked until almost none of the skin showed. "I don't know," she said. Aela's look was not _quite_ judgmental—not yet, at least, but Sigrid nevertheless had the feeling that something hung in the balance of her answer. She just could not, for the life of her, figure out what it might be. "I'll be honest, Aela. At first I only joined the Companions because I wished to leave with enough gold saved up to buy a home for myself. But now that I have the option… is it strange to say that I don't _want_ to leave Jorrvaskr?"

The Huntress' impassive face broke into a quicksilver smile, like the sun dappling through spring leaves, flickering and just as quickly gone. "No, it's not strange at all. It's exactly as it _should_ be. We're pack, you and I, and everyone else in this hall. When it comes time to draw blood, there's no one in Skyrim I'd rather have at my back, and I reckon the same has become true for you as well. They may be a motley bunch of drunken rabble at times, but this is _home_ and they are _family._"

"You're right," she said, almost wonderingly. "It's just strange. I've spent so much time running from putting down roots, that now that I've found V—all of you—I don't know how to react. I've spent too much time running, even after coming to Jorrvaskr."

"Skjor was the same way," Aela said, ducking her head under the water and emerging, the hair dripping in her eyes as she washed it, combing her fingers through the long strands. "At first. The idea of needing other people around after what happened to him seemed intolerable. A weakness rather than a strength. It took time for him to come around. He would have laid down his life to protect any of you, at the end. He _did_. But…" and she trailed off, eyes slipping down, a moment of melancholy that seemed so out of character for her. "I'm glad you feel that way. Our numbers are shrinking and there's been too much death these last few months. I would hate to lose another shield-sibling to the lure of a comfortable home and a soft old age."

Sigrid found herself laughing, though there was little humor in the sound. "Don't worry, shield-sister… somehow, I have the distinct feeling that old age and I are not destined to meet. Not in this lifetime."

Aela raised one eyebrow, but did not remark on the fatalistic phrase.

"I'll leave you to your bath," Sigrid said. "Thank you, Aela."

"Don't mention it," Aela drawled. "Please. I'm not one for the sappy moments."

"Could've fooled me," Sigrid said, glancing over her shoulder with a smirk as she went back to the quarters.

After she dressed in blessedly clean clothes, Sigrid went to find Rikke before the woman packed up and rode hard for the camp that was her next destination. She did not see her at first, but she did find Hadvar drinking in the Bannered Mare. "Hadvar?" she asked. "Have you seen the legate?"

"No," he said, using his knife to spear a roasted potato and take a bite of it. "I don't know where she is. It's none of my business, anyway; I don't think Rikke even knows my name. Probably because I'm not 'The Dragonborn.'" The wry look that he sent her way made her groan. There was humor in it, but a kernel of serious frustration as well.

"Hadvar, don't _you_ start this too. Don't treat me any differently than you'd treat another soldier," Sigrid said, though she knew that such a thing was impossible. The other soldiers didn't wear the bones of dragons as their armor and war cry all in one.

"I'm just teasing you," the legionnaire said, his eyebrows raising as he sipped his mug of ale. "Try the guard's barracks. If there's last minute business to be taken care of, that's where she'll be, I bet."

"Thanks," she said, and then clapped him impulsively and affectionately on the back. "Perhaps I'll see you soon. I'm not going to stop until this war is _over_."

He snorted. "Well, you've a very high opinion of yourself, my friend. I'm glad _someone_ seems confident about this whole thing, at least. Maybe we'll be home by next Evening Star."

"Well before that, Hadvar," Sigrid said. "It's going to have to be well before that." Or there might not be much of Skyrim left to fight over.

Rikke was not in the barracks, however, and after heading out through the main gates, Sigrid found her saddling her horse at the stables, quick and efficient as always. Rikke gave the impression of a woman who wasted not a spare ounce of energy on a superfluous movement or word. "Legate," Sigrid said, saluting her with a thump of her fist to her chest.

"Auxiliary," Rikke said, returning the salute.

"What are my orders?"

"Report back to the General in Solitude," Rikke said, as she hauled herself up into the saddle, one hand stroking the horse's neck gently, to calm him. "He'll want to know of the victory from the mouth of one who was there, and I'm headed straight for the Pale." And she grinned, then, the smile out of place on her rough-hewn, serious face. "And he'll have further orders for you, too. Great things are happening now, auxiliary—wheels are in motion that were stuck in ruts before, and it's all thanks to you. Keep your eyes open and your sword sharp—you're going to need all of your wits and weapons about you."

"Aye, Legate. Gods be with you."

She might have imagined it, but as Rikke rode away, she could have sworn she heard, over the clatter of hooves on the stones, the legate call: _Talos guide you_.

* * *

><p>He was not surprised to find that she had gone by the time he woke, but as he sat up, squinting in the dark and fumbling around for a candle, he was surprised to find that she had left a note on the pillow. He had never seen her handwriting before, and somehow was even more surprised by the fact that it was the writing of one unpracticed with a quill, stabbed through with splotches of ink where the pen had blobbed, and extremely creatively spelled to boot. Suddenly, her mockery of his love of books and letters took a newer, stranger layer: she might have been able to read (though he had no idea whether this was true or with how much difficulty—he realized he'd never actually seen her reading anything), but she could barely write, if the note was anything to go by. Eventually, with much squinting and sounding out the phonetic spellings, he was able to decipher the message, which said: <em>To Solitude. Probably the Pale after. Back as soon as I can. Sorry couldn't take you with me. Need to get things moving again. Faster alone. See you. —S. <em>In a way he was relieved she had left without a word, though it would have bothered him but a few weeks ago. Despite everything, she could take care of herself. _Skjor could take care of himself, too_. He shook his head, and folded the piece of paper, slipping it into a drawer.

After dressing, he went to find Kodlak in his chambers. The old man looked happier than Vilkas could remember seeing him recently, as though something inside of him that had been warring with his emotions had settled. "Ah, Vilkas," the Harbinger said pleasantly. "Come in. Sit and tell me of the battle for the city." For a brief moment a shadow crossed his face, and Vilkas knew that he must have regretted not being able to take part in the defense. But the shadow vanished just as quickly as he listened to Vilkas' narration with keen interest, asking the proper questions at all the appropriate points. Strangely, the Harbinger seemed almost as interested in Sigrid's role in the defense as he did in Vilkas. "And the new blood?" he asked, an almost eager light shining in his eyes. Vilkas was reminded uncomfortably of the flash of recognition on Kodlak's face the day Sigrid had come striding into Jorrvaskr, as though he knew something about her that Vilkas didn't. _I don't like secrets._ Even from the Harbinger.

"She fought well," Vilkas admitted. "She is not so reckless as she was when she first came to us. She knows—she knows her duty." To battle Alduin. Perhaps to die in the process. Aye, she knew her duty, and it tugged at his ribs that he knew it too. He could not ask her to turn away, would never ask her to turn away. "She leads well. Good sense of what's around her. Not as fast with a blade as Aela, perhaps, but strong-armed. She fights through the pain." He stopped, for if he continued his tongue might run away from him. _And she's stubborn as an ornery goat when she gets an idea in her head and applies things she's learned on the battlefield in the bedroom. _Somehow, he doubted that Kodlak would appreciate either of those pieces of information.

"Good, good…" Kodlak mused, as though this had confirmed some of his long-held suspicions. And then he smiled. "Your boy was well-behaved during the siege. Good with a dagger. Eager to learn. Brave, for all he's a bit near-sighted."

"He's not _my_ boy," Vilkas said hastily.

"For now he is," Kodlak replied, and handed Vilkas a letter. "And for the foreseeable future."

_We could not possibly spare the men to bring our darling Velwyn back to Solitude_, a woman's flowing, feminine hand had written. The contrast to Sigrid's crudely scrawled note could not have been more marked. A faint hint of flowery perfume and the sour stench of skooma rose from the paper. _That was, after all, why we hired _your men _to return him to us in the first place. It would be especially impossible now with the war on in earnest, when all available hands are needed to protect our shipments from marauding Stormcloaks and worse. He will be safer in Jorrvaskr, amongst warriors, until the hostilities are over or until you may spare the men to bring him home to Solitude. We will send a monthly stipend by courier to pay for his upkeep._

Vilkas stared at it, disbelievingly. "Truly? They're really going to bloody _leave_ him here? His 'upkeep,' like he's a fucking prize horse?"

"Apparently so," Kodlak said with a shrug.

"And we're just going to keep him? Just like that, because his parents couldn't be arsed to come and get him?" Vilkas demanded. "This is a warrior's hall, not a—a boarding school for the children of milk-drinkers!"

"Strange," Kodlak said, meeting Vilkas' eyes squarely, despite the film that clouded his vision. His voice was calm and steady, without so much a hint of rebuke. But the words were more than enough on their own. "That sounds very much like what Arnbjorn said when Jergen brought you and your brother home."

Vilkas looked down at the table—for there was nothing he could say to that, truly. Not that he would have tossed the boy out on the street, but the frustration of having him underfoot, more eager than Ria and twice as difficult to chase away, was not appealing. Taking pity on him, Kodlak stood, limping over to the cabinet where he kept Ulfberth War-Bear's moonshine, and the two little glasses, which never boded well for good news. The last time Kodlak had drank with him, it had resulted in giving up the beast-form… But he couldn't beat around the bush any more. Kodlak's brief mention of the stunning news the night before must be answered, or at least explained, before it drove him mad with wondering. "Harbinger—you said you had found it? The cure you've been searching for all of these years?" Vilkas watched in frustrated silence as the Harbinger took his time, pouring out two equal amounts of the fiery liquid, gently nudging one at his protégée and gesturing for him to drink. Vilkas drank, as the whisky burned a liquid path down his throat and into his stomach, and closed his eyes. War-Bear had missed his calling, truly.

"I have," Kodlak confirmed, downing his glass in one gulp.

"So… what _is_ it?"

"I cannot tell you," Kodlak replied. "Not yet. The time is not…right."

"Why?" Vilkas asked. "Tell me, Harbinger, and I will gather the materials for you. Hell, I'll carry you on my back if you need to go somewhere special to do it."

"I know, Vilkas," Kodlak said fondly, his eyes misty. "I know you would. But this is larger than you or I, now… and we must wait. Bide our time. I will tell you more when you are ready."

"Harbinger…" Vilkas said, choking back his protests. To have gone through so much frustration—even torture—resisting the call of the blood for Kodlak's pleasant ideal, to have endured the nightmares of Hircine's realm that plagued him after letting Sinding run free—and to know that the cure was within their grasp, but that the Harbinger—did not trust him? Did not think him ready?—stung. "Harbinger, I have ever been loyal to…"

"Don't think I don't know that, boy," Kodlak cut in, suddenly quite stern. "I told you it's not the right time. Soon, it will be. Soon. All I ask is that you continue to trust me, in the meantime. And to keep my counsel. You're the only one I've told thus far."

"You know I will." He wouldn't be happy about it, but he would, for the old man's sake. Vilkas would follow him, however unhappily, into Oblivion if he asked.

And Kodlak knew it, the bastard.

* * *

><p>The road to Solitude was not uneventful. As she walked quickly down the road by Rorikstead early that morning, she saw another dragon rise from the crested hill outside the town, triumphantly yelling out the usual nonsense that dragons seemed to spout: <em>I AM NAHAGLIIV, HEAR MY VOICE AND DESPAAAAIR.<em> He flapped menacingly towards the little thatched buildings; hovered above, and did not descend until she moved forward into the center of the town, sword and shield drawn. With a sigh, she focused that intense hatred of the ancient Nords into Shouting Dragonrend at the bobbing, weaving giant, and the bolt of blue brought Nahagliiv to the ground with a shocked roar, the crash of his heavy body throwing up a cloud of dust and dirt. She cringed a little at the feeling of fury rushing through her, and wondered whether Dragonrend would ever come without such a price, though she could not afford to think too long on it now. Once he was down, the fight was barely a contest. She dodged his snapping jaws and slashed through the glowing blue cloud of magic, slamming him in the face with a whip of her shield when he lunged for her again. As she could see the light fading, so she Shouted again, and though the dragon struggled mightily against its bonds, it could not break them. Nahagliiv cursed her, and her ancestors, but it was too late. And it came for her for the last time, its jaws spread wide. With a twist of her wrist, she stabbed _up_, the sword digging through the softer flesh of the dragon's mouth, into its skull. With a groan, it dropped, its sharp fangs grazing her arm (_well, that _is _what you get for sticking your damn hand in a dragon's mouth,_ she thought, _you're lucky you didn't lose it_) and drawing blood before the light faded from its eyes and it collapsed, dead.

Catching her breath, Sigrid took the time to check her wounds. They were not too deep considering, but painful, the jagged edge of the dragon's fang like a slaughterfish's tooth, leaving a ragged track behind. Painful more than anything, the rip of tooth to skin and out again. The bleeding could be a problem if it remained unchecked, however. And the dragon's soul swirled around her, sinking below her skin with a hum and burn of magic. Every time, the invasion of that alien mind, battering against her own, got a little easier to push down. A little easier to understand. She coughed, but the nausea did not come. _This shouldn't be something to accustom myself to._

"Are you all right?" a small voice asked, and Sigrid looked up to find a slight blonde girl dressed in ragged, dirty clothes watching her curiously. She did not seem shocked by the absorption of the soul, but it was incredibly early for a child so young to be up and about—the girl was an odd duck, evidently.

"I'm fine," Sigrid said, smiling a little awkwardly. "Just caught a tooth on my arm. Some advice for you, girl, don't go around sticking your hands into the mouths of beasts."

"Oh, I would never," the girl said, her eyes wide. She came forward shyly, looking at the wound on Sigrid's arm and touching it with one finger. "Not a _dragon_… But I had a dream there was a good dragon, though. He was old and gray, and he wasn't scary."

Now it was Sigrid's turn for widened eyes and a small noise of surprise. "You dreamed true, little girl. There is such a dragon, and I've met him."

"Have you?" the girl's brown eyes shone with excitement. "I _knew _it! I _knew_ my dreams were true! Britte says I'm crazy, but I'm not."

"Well, I don't know about that," Sigrid said with a grin. "But not about this, at least."

"I'm Sissel," the girl said.

"Pleased to meet you, Sissel. I'm Sigrid."

"Would you follow me?" the girl said, extending her hand, "I don't know any healing magic—_yet_—but Jouane would help you, I think."

"It's nothing," Sigrid said. "Don't worry about it."

"No, I want to help," Sissel said stubbornly, her hand still extended. "And you can tell me stories while he does it. I wish _I _could be an adventurer like you, and go wherever I want."

Sigrid took the girl's hand with her uninjured one, and followed her towards the small house she seemed to be heading towards. "Maybe you will, Sissel. Maybe you will."

Jouane Manette turned out to be an old Breton healer who had met the founder of Rorikstead in the Great War, living in the man's modest "manor," which though small was clean and pleasantly appointed. He still had a bit of a military air to him despite the fact that he was frail and elderly, and his hands, when they touched her with the glow of healing, were strong still, his touch cool and comforting as the rents in her skin left by the dragon's teeth closed. As Manette worked on her arm, she told Sissel a story about Paarthurnax, about the great and infinite sadness in his eyes, and his lonely vigil at the snowy roof of the world, the girl listening with rapt, fascinated attention. After he finished healing her, Jouane refused payment from Sigrid, stating that it was good to challenge himself a bit—the sleepy farming village didn't have many injuries—and he would never take money from a legionnaire, anyway. He sent her off with a loaf of bread and a few extra healing potions ("Somehow, I have the feeling you'll probably make use of these") and a murmured _thank you_ for talking to Sissel and showing her a shred of kindness, something her own family seemed incapable of doing. She bid them both goodbye, squared her shoulders, and set off once more.

The girl and old man watched her move off down the road until her tiny figure disappeared into the distance.

She managed to make it to Solitude without further need for healing potions, only stopping once to grab a few hours' restless sleep beneath an oak tree. A thief did attempt to stop her on the road once she started, but Sigrid, lacking patience, bowled him over with a Shouted _fus ro dah_, and did not even feel guilty about doing so. Once he was able to pick himself up from the stunned heap into which he had fallen, he ran away as fast as his bruised limbs could take him, screaming, "I yield! I yield! No more! I'm sorry!" as she practically wheezed in laughter. The last few miles she spent riding in the back of a peddler's cart in exchange for promising to defend him if bandits attacked, her feet swinging over the edge as she watched Haafinger receding behind her, sword resting on her lap. No one approached the cart, and finally, she was able to relax a bit, leaning her cheek against the hard wooden rail. Outside the gates of Solitude, she bid the peddler goodbye, and walked up the ramp to Castle Dour.

She found Tullius bent over the map, discussing strategy with another legate who was not Rikke. She found herself unimpressed by the replacement, a lean looking man with a sunburnt face and a wandering eye. Tullius seemed not to notice, instead lecturing about holding onto Falkreath was important to control access to the Reach. However, he looked up at the sound of footsteps, a rare smile cracking the stern facade, however briefly. "Ah, auxiliary," he said. "Come to report the Whiterun victory, yes? A courier reached me already but I wish to hear it from one who was there."

"At Rikke's orders, sir," Sigrid said, standing at military attention. She recited the facts, quick and cool: the defense of the barricades, the fall back to the drawbridge, and Ulfric's men slaughtered there. "Some of them escaped, but I doubt they'll get far. Not with the countryside as torn up as it is. The Whiterun Hold farmers aren't the types to forgive or forget."

"Correct. And by defeating Ulfric at Whiterun, we have solidified the allegiance of the Jarl and struck the first major military victory since hostilities broke out," the General said, though there was nothing gloating about his speech. Merely matter of fact, she thought, his eyes business-like and almost cold. He was a career man, not a fanatic. In some ways this made her feel much better about the entire affair; fanatics made poor decisions, such as attacking a well-defended city with less men than they should have, getting them killed. Tullius seemed oblivious to her thoughts, musing, "Perhaps the Stormcloaks will soon lose heart for this little rebellion of theirs once and for all."

"I doubt one victory is going to do that, sir," Sigrid said.

"Don't interrupt," the General replied, coolly. "For your actions in defending the city, I'm promoting you to Quaestor. Take this blade, a symbol of your new station and responsibility. I'll keep an eye on your progress. The Empire rewards excellence, and so do I." He gestured to one of the guards to bring him the blade in question, which had been hanging from a weapon rack on the wall, in the shadows. Now she could see it gleaming in the candlelight, a beautiful piece of ebony, a one-handed weapon but one with weight and heft that the Skyforge blade did not have. It _was_ truly beautiful, a slight curve in the leaf-shaped blade; the hilt thick and wrapped with dyed-black leather. Her fingers itched to take hold of it, to test the blade and see if it moved as smoothly as she suspected it would. The blade would be such a wonderful complement to the Skyforge steel.

But she couldn't accept such a valuable gift. Not from General Tullius. "Sir, I couldn't possibly accept—"

"You can, and you will, Quaestor," Tullius said sternly. "And that's an order."

"Yes, sir," she said, and took the blade from the guard. It _did_ feel right in her hands: she had always liked a slightly heavier weapon, and she could tell it was well-balanced. Not quite as well-balanced as Eorlund's work, but then, nothing could be perfect. "What are my new orders?" she asked, once she had secured the blade in a spare sheath she kept in her pack.

"Make your way to our hidden military camp in the Pale. Rikke will have important tasks for you, and will need you when we reclaim Dawnstar."

"What exactly will I be doing there?" Sigrid asked, curious. She had not been part of an assault on city walls in… years, at least. But Dawnstar was not much of a city, when it came down to it. A few homes scattered about, and the mines. Still, she could not imagine that Tullius would find a frontal assault necessary.

"Whatever Rikke wishes you to do," he said, raising an eyebrow, and she knew that she asked too many questions. "And I expect you to find creative ways to disrupt the Stormcloaks along the way. That is all, Quaestor. Now get moving."

"Yes, sir," Sigrid said, the noise of her fist on her armor echoing in the quiet room, before she turned on her heel and strode from the room.

The Imperial camp in the Pale was not far from Solitude. Sigrid found herself retracing similar terrain that she and Vilkas had followed when returning Velwyn to his parents, across the marshy islands that separated the Solitude peninsula from the mainland. As she strode across the icy beach and up the snowy embankments that framed it, she thought to herself, _I really, _really _need to invest in a horse_. Perhaps that would be a better use of the money she'd been saving to purchase a home. At the very least it would cut down on the interminable trekking through snowy mountains. _Listen to you_, she thought sourly. _You've gone soft in the south. All you've _ever _done with your life is trek through the snowy mountains_. As she saw the smoke rising above the horizon from what she assumed was the hidden Imperial camp, she wondered what her father would think about all of this. He had wanted her to wait to join the Legion, but wished her to wait until her eighteenth birthday. _And look how that worked out for us._ Here she was, ten years after he would have liked her to join, in the legion.

She could smell the roasting meat from the cookfires, and her stomach lurched, starving. She hadn't eaten since the morning, the last of the bread that Jouane had insisted she bring with her, and the salty, smoky scent of horker was tempting. As she approached the camp, however, the telltale screech overhead signaled yet another dragon swooping in to attack. Sigrid swore, drawing the ebony sword as soldiers ran towards her and the beast, bows drawn. The hiss of the arrows let fly from their strings was drowned out by the roar of the dragon as it breathed harsh frost over them all. "_Joor zah frul!"_ Sigrid Shouted, for with the sudden chaos among the soldiers, she had a feeling someone was going to be hurt by the slash of a friendly blade. Shocked and furious, the dragon dropped like a stone, and shocked exclamations burst out among the soldiers, for the barest of seconds, before they remembered their duty and took their blades to the dragon's side—from the practiced way that they spread out to do it, Sigrid had the distinct impression it wasn't the first dragon that had blundered into the Imperial camp. In the end, Sigrid barely had to do anything to kill it, but groaned as she realized that all of the soldiers would see her absorb the soul.

And when it came for her, the glowing tendrils whipping around her wrists and legs and sinking below her skin, the shocked murmurs and whispers intensified, some of the men openly staring at her. She held her head high and stalked into the camp, ignoring the lurch of her stomach as the smell of the cooking meat grew stronger. The camp was well-organized, with the commander's tent holding a large map and a small bed, and a hospital tent with a groaning, wounded soldier laying on the bed, clutching his leg, his eyes dazed. A healer bent over him, cleaning the wound carefully. She ignored them and strode up to the commander's tent, where Rikke and an Imperial legate stood bent over the map, arguing about troop placement.

The male legate looked up first, and frowned. "Can I help you?"

"Easy, Constantius, she's a legionnaire," Rikke said, and nodded sharply at Sigrid. "Greetings, Quaestor."

"Reporting for duty, sir," Sigrid said, saluting.

"At ease," Rikke said, waving her hand. "Now, because your situation is a little…unusual, I'm able to use you in ways that I might not be able to with a regular soldier. What I'm going to need you to do is to deliver some false orders to the Stormcloak commander in Dawnstar. But first we need to get our hands on some rebel orders to make the forgeries. The Nightgate and Candlehearth inns are frequent stops for Stormcloak runners. See if you can't 'convince' one of those innkeepers to help you. One way or another, get me those documents. But don't do anything rash if you go to Windhelm."

"I'm familiar with the Nightgate Inn," Sigrid said, thinking of the night she had spent with Vilkas and pushing down the surge of emotion that gripped her at the memory, a fond warmth in her belly. _Concentrate, woman!_ "It's not far from the camp, so there's no sense in going all the way to Windhelm when this might do just as well." She tried her best to keep from staring too much at the skewers of meat above the fire, dripping grease into the flames and smelling distractingly delicious.

Rikke noticed the direction of her gaze, and laughed. "We won't send you off without food first," she said. "Eat your fill, Quaestor, and then get on your way. Don't fail me."

"I won't, sir," Sigrid said, and went to fill her stomach, ignoring the protests of the soldier who had been carefully tending the skewers as she snatched it from the flames.

* * *

><p>He found that his daily responsibilities did not vanish with her, and he threw himself into them gladly. Paid Ria a hundred septims to take the horses he had borrowed from Ulundil back to Windhelm. Balanced the accounts, with Velwyn peering over his shoulder and chirping suggestions like a particularly anxious pet bird. He went with Athis to scour the countryside for the remaining Stormcloaks from the Whiterun camp, and found them holed up in the White River Watch. Together, he and the dark elf put them to the sword. The men died bravely, Vilkas had to give them that much, facing their deaths with clear consciences. He did not regret it, did not feel guilty. They had threatened his home, and such threats were eliminated. Once that was done, however, there remained little for him to do. He assigned Farkas and Njada simple jobs, collecting payment owed. And once that was finished, he had little to do but sit around in the silent mead hall, alone with his thoughts.<p>

This was clearly an intolerable state of affairs.

And so he found Velwyn in the kitchen, the boy scrubbing pots and pans with such a grim expression of determination on his fox-featured face that it startled a chuckle from Vilkas. Velwyn whirled at the intrusion, startled. "Oh, Vilkas," he said, relieved, and Vilkas grinned inwardly—apparently Tilma had struck the proper amount of fear into the boy's heart. "Hello! I've just been doing some chores."

"Did Kodlak tell you the news?" Vilkas asked, leaning against the doorframe.

Velwyn's mouth pressed into a thin line, and his shoulders hunched forward, as though unsure whether to begin begging, or to shriek in excitement. "No…?"

"Your parents have written us," Vilkas said, choosing his words carefully. "You're going to be staying with us for the time being. And if you are, we'll begin training you—" He did not finish, because Velwyn had abruptly bulled forward and thrown his arms around Vilkas' waist, hugging him tightly. "All right, boy, you'd better stop that this instant. Companions do not _hug_."

Instantly, Velwyn released him, looking sheepish and abashed. "Sorry. You said training? I can learn how to sword fight? Really? Truly?"

"Yes," Vilkas said, and then grinned. "And we're going to begin the same way that my teacher taught me."

"How?" Velwyn said breathlessly. "Knives? Daggers? _Sparring_?"

"No. You're going to run laps around the grounds until you can't run anymore."

"What's that got to do with—" Velwyn protested, face falling.

"What's a warrior without stamina?" Vilkas said. It was probably cruel of him to enjoy this so much, but someone had to teach the boy some discipline, to follow orders, or he was going to get himself killed, one of these days. And it sure as hell wouldn't be under Vilkas' watch. "We're starting today. Well, what are you waiting for? Go!"

* * *

><p>Sigrid found her way to the Nightgate Inn, retracing steps she'd taken before. It was strange: she'd experienced much of Skyrim for the first time only this year. And many of her memories of Skyrim, both the woods and the mountains, from Solitude to the Pale, were tied up with Vilkas. Of marching through the woods with him, of escaping from the blizzard. The sky now was clear, and spring was beginning to take back the season from winter, but as she approached the grim exterior of the Nightgate Inn, with its lake still frozen clear over, she mostly remembered clearing the skies and his shocked exclamation, <em>but why didn't you do this before<em>? When she shoved her way through the door, the dining area was mostly empty, except for a Nord in a leather cowl and rough leather jerkin. Uneasily, she saw that he carried the same type of thin, slightly curved blade, made of hammered, layered steel, that Delphine carried. _Could the Blades have tracked me here? Unlikely. If he _is _a Blade… he's probably hiding_. She did not meet the man's eyes, and instead strolled up to the bartender, where Hadring, the stoic bartender, polished a glass.

"Any Stormcloak couriers pass through here recently?" Sigrid asked him. No sense in beating around the bush.

"I tend to keep my patrons' privacy," Hadring replied, instantly on his guard, eyeing her suspiciously.

"Look," Sigrid said, with a weary sigh. "I don't _want_ to do this, but I don't have the time to argue with you. I _will_ get rough with you if I have to." And she gave him her best imitation of Vilkas' level, icy stare, unblinking as he looked down first.

"Now now, that won't be necessary," Hadring muttered, and flicked a glance at the door, lowering his voice so that the Nord in the leather jerkin wouldn't hear him. "He was here, but he just left, heading towards Dawnstar. If you leave now, you can probably catch him."

"For your trouble," Sigrid said dismissively, tossing him a gold septim. The man scowled at her, but grabbed the coin readily enough. In this gods-forsaken location, he couldn't afford to be choosy, though Sigrid felt the force of his glare against her back as she stalked from the room.

Out in the open again, she felt more like herself. She had never been one for the hired muscle jobs—she didn't like threatening people who wouldn't fight back. It didn't make her feel big, didn't make her feel important—it merely made her feel _small_. And guilty. Neither of which were feelings she liked to indulge. She remembered, briefly, the first month she'd spent with the Companions, when Vilkas had made her go to Riften to rough up the priest of Mara, and snorted. _What an unrepentant _arse _that man is_, she thought, not unaffectionately.

What did feel good, however, was to focus on tracking the Stormcloak. They must have just crossed paths, he heading out into the woods as she moved in towards the inn. And now she could put all of her old instincts into use, though the courier was not difficult prey to track. He did not seem to be concerned with hiding his trail, and the footsteps in the snow as clear as the sun looped around the frozen lake and into the woods, avoiding the main road. Sigrid shook her head as she followed; the man was obviously trying to keep away from clear view, but he had not bothered to hide his footsteps or do anything to obscure his path. Her opinion of him fell rapidly. She followed, using the same techniques she would have used, with her father, when stalking a deer. Moving swiftly but quietly, keeping to the cover of the trees. Hunting men was so much easier: the sense of smell was not so sensitive, the hearing less acute. And then she saw him in the distance, a dot of blue against the white and green, bobbing through the woods.

She kept her pace: too easy was it to break into a run, alert the prey, and force a confrontation. This was a job for a dagger rather than a sword; she wanted the man's armor intact. Instead of moving too quickly, she slipped forward through the woods, moving quietly despite her heavy armor. This is what she had been trained to do from childhood, to move silently through the snow, unseen, her boots wrapped with soft fur to muffle the noise. The Stormcloak didn't realize she was coming until she came up behind him, surging forward with a sudden motion, yanking him up by the hair and slitting his exposed throat. For a moment, the action briefly brought back a flash of memory: _the knife punching into her back, hot and cold all at once, the pain as it withdrew, the metal warmed by her blood against her throat as he drew it across her skin. "Sorry, my dear. Just business." _The Stormcloak's body fell, hot dark blood spreading across the white snow and melting it down, and Sigrid came back to the present again with a shudder of her shoulders.

All business now, she crouched next to the body, rifling through its pockets for the orders, which were contained in a small oilcloth pouch attached to his belt. She cut it loose with the dagger, and then dipped the blade clean in the snow, wiping it down on a rag. She eyed the corpse and then set to work, stripping it quickly of its cuirass and helmet, and the fur gauntlets and boots. It looked a bit small for her, but she would have to make it work. There was no way she could go walking in to Dawnstar dressed in the dragonbone armor, there were enough rumors spreading about the Dragonborn that she would be instantly recognized and it would all be for naught. And so Sigrid checked the armor one last time before slipping it into her pack to make sure she hadn't gotten too much blood on it—there were stains on the cuirass, but nothing that couldn't be explained away as a battle.

And then she set off at a jog for the camp, to show her findings to Rikke.

The sun had set and the snow glimmered with the light reflected from the shimmering auroras by the time she made it back to camp. The legate, who had been sitting on a log by the fire and speaking with one of the legionnaires, raised her eyes when she saw Sigrid running towards her. "Back already, Quaestor? That was fast."

"I told you there was no reason to go all the way to Windhelm," Sigrid said, wheezing a little bit as she stood at attention in front of the fire. She had pushed herself to get back as quickly as possible, and it showed. It had been a long few months, and her body was making it known to her. "Here you go, Legate. This is what the courier had in his pouch." And she took the oilcloth pouch and handed it to the other woman.

Rikke scanned it quickly, efficiently, her eyes widening slightly as she read more and more. "Very good… Let's see what you have here. Interesting—they know more of our plans than I expected… and it would seem Fort Dunstad is in need of reinforcements. We'll make sure they won't be getting _those." _She gestured for Sigrid to follow her back towards the tent, as she set the orders down and took out her quill and ink pot. _"_One moment while I 'correct' some of these documents…" And she set pen to paper, and Sigrid was mightily glad that she hadn't been asked to do it: they never would have fooled anyone that way. "That should do it. Make sure those forged documents get to the Stormcloak commander in Dawnstar. It'll throw him off our trail, allowing us to maneuver more freely."

"Legate, may I borrow your tent to store my armor?" Sigrid asked. "I took a Stormcloak cuirass from the courier, that I might pass undetected in their ranks."

Rikke whistled, and then smiled. "Smart woman, Quaestor. I knew I liked you for a reason. Yes, of course. And you may draw the flap if you like. And don't worry, your things will be safe with me. I won't let any of these hooligans steal those old bones of yours."

"Thank you, sir," she said, with a grin, closing the flap. As Sigrid stripped out of her dragonbone armor, she felt almost like she was removing a piece of her skin. She had grown accustomed to the weight of it, the press of bone against her flesh. Putting on the Stormcloak armor felt strange and wrong, the quilted padding over the chain mail far too light and vulnerable, exposed. When she looked in the rough mirror on the wall, her face stared back at her from a stranger's clothing, tight across her broad shoulders, pale and exhausted in the gloom of the tent. _I really need some sleep_, she thought, but there was no time for that now. Running a hand through her hair, which was growing shaggy once more, she checked in the glass once more to make sure that no sign of her original armor remained. She even went so far as to scrub off her signature war paint, the black bar that slashed across her eyes like a mask. When she looked at her face again, she looked tired, but younger.

When she emerged from the tent, both Rikke and the male legate, Constantius, jumped to their feet almost reflexively at the sight of a blue cuirass in their midst. "Well that's damned eerie," he grumbled as he sat down again, seeing it was only Sigrid. "You're a convincing Stormcloak."

"Good," Sigrid said. "I'm going to need to be, to pass off this letter. Thank Ysmir that no one sees my _face_, only the armor."

"Smart of you," Rikke said, as she handed over the altered orders. "Take a horse. Report back when you've done it, Quaestor, and don't delay. Our next movements rely on this mission's success."

"Aye, sir," Sigrid said, and went to saddle the horse.

Dawnstar was extremely accessible from the camp on horseback, although in the end she almost regretted accepting the legate's loan. The horse, a huge chestnut gelding unimaginatively named Chestnut, was a skittish beast used to carrying many masters, but not one who stank of wolf. Shying, it was nearly impossible to guide the gelding in the right direction. She was thankful to reach Dawnstar in one piece, and tied the horse to a post outside of the White Hall. No one stopped her, no one looked at her twice as she slid from the horse's back. She was invisible in the Stormcloak armor, though she hoped no one noticed how poorly it fit her. No one did. No heads turned as she nodded to the guards outside the White Hall, as she opened the door, as she strode past Skald the Elder and into the room set to the side where the army officers conferred.

"We'll show those faithless dogs who this land belongs to," Frorkmar Banner-Torn muttered to himself as she came through the door. To her surprise, the Stormcloak officer was an exceedingly handsome man, his beard neatly trimmed and his hair pulled away from his face in a horse's tail. A red scar ran from his eye down the side of his cheek, livid and out of place on the smooth-featured face. He looked up at the sound of her boots, muscles tensed, then relaxed when he saw her armor and the courier's pouch slung over her shoulder. "Yes, soldier?" he said questioningly, his attention flicking to the splatter of dried blood on the shoulder of her armor. _Curses_.

"I have important documents for you, sir," Sigrid said, looking him straight in the eye. It wasn't a lie—they certainly _were_ important, just not in the way he thought.

He looked at her again, a faint shade of confusion in his eyes. "Is that so? I don't recognize you."

"Replacement," she said, as confidently as possible. "Other courier broke his ankle in a ditch."

"Cardless of him," Banner-Torn said, and for a moment she wasn't sure whether he believed her or not. But after that interminable pause, he nodded, and held out his hand for the missive. She handed it to him, silently thanking the gods above that it had been stored in a waterproof bag where the blood and snow could not touch it. Frorkmar's keen eyes scanned the page, and he smiled widely as he read down it. "All right, let's take a look. Ah, good. Looks like the reinforcements for the fort are on the way. And we have some information about enemy troop movements as well. Excellent."

"Aye, sir," she said.

"It's not easy running messages, what with Imperial scouts crawling all over the place. And dangerous, as the broken ankle well shows. Well done, woman. Why don't you grab yourself a drink at the Windpeak before heading back. On me." And he flicked a septim at her.

She caught it in one hand out of midair, her fingers closing around it until the metal dug into her flesh. It was still warm from the heat of his pocket, and she set it down sharply on the counter, trying to keep the disgust from her voice and failing. A septim, and the condescension in his voice were the reasons she had fought so hard to avoid being beholden to superior officers. Her pride could not abide it. "Keep your money, _sir_."

His eyebrows went up, and he looked at her again more closely, but could not recognize her face. "No offense meant, soldier. On your way."

She turned on her heel and stalked hurriedly from the room and towards the door of the White Hall before he figured out whether he recognized her or not or decided her impertinence deserved punishment. She was in such a hurry, in fact, that she almost collided with six and a half feet of solid muscle. Very familiar muscle. The big hand that reached down to pick her up off of the ground, aching and covered in snow, was also familiar. Farkas met her eyes, and for a moment she feared that the man would give her away right then and there. But his bland gaze did not reveal any recognition as he examined her with the detached interest of a mercenary given to a soldier. "Apologies, soldier," he rumbled, and then looked away.

"Watch where you're going, you great lummox," Sigrid muttered as she made her way towards the door.

Her heart was beating almost audibly in her ears as she left the White Hall, her head held high. Surely they could all hear it. She knew that Farkas could: Vilkas had once told her, when they were lying in bed together before she took the beast-blood, that he could smell her heart beating as well as hear it, the pump of the blood through her veins, the coppery scent of her. Whether this meant that _all _werewolves could do this, or just him—just with her—she did not know. But she did not want to risk being given away by her treacherous body. Surely they could see the sweat beading on her forehead as she untied the horse and walked it as calmly as she could away. It wasn't until she was outside of Dawnstar, out of sight, that she realized that Farkas had followed her, the big man keeping pace with the horse, slow as it was going.

"Sigrid?" he said. "Why the Stormcloak armor?"

"I was on an undercover mission," she replied. "Thank you for not giving me away."

"I'm not _stupid_," he said, but there was no rancor in it. He eyed the too-tight armor again, and then snorted, amused. "Always find you in the strangest outfits—this is almost worse'n that pink dress. You like dressing up for me?"

"I promise you, it's a bloody coincidence," Sigrid grunted, and then shook her head. "We've got to stop meeting like this. It's uncanny."

"Got a good sense for it, I guess," Farkas shrugged. "Here to collect on a bounty Skald owed us, that lazy fucker."

"You get it?"

"Aye," Farkas replied, more than a little smugly.

"And now you're going back to Jorrvaskr?"

"Hell no."

"…Then where are you going?"

"With you," Farkas said, as though this were entirely obvious.

"What? No! I'm on Legion business."

"Yeah? And now I am, too."

"You're not a legionnaire," Sigrid argued. "I thought the Companions dealt in coin, not in causes!"

"Aye," Farkas said patiently, as though explaining this to a babe. "But you're here, and now _I'm _here, and I'm not leaving a shield-sibling to fight alone."

"But Farkas… I'm not going to _be_ alone. I'm going to be with the other legionnaires."

"Bah!" he said, and spat on the ground, expressing exactly what he thought of the Imperials. "Legion ain't _Companions_. And 'sides," he added, shooting her a very mischievous sideways glance. "Vilkas'd never forgive me if I ran into you here and let you go on alone."

"I'm a grown woman," she said, knowing she was fighting a losing battle. "I'm a legendary hero reborn. I can knock you off your feet without lifting a finger. I'll be _fine_, Farkas."

He merely shook his head stubbornly, and patted the horse on its flank. Strangely, though he also smelled of wolf, the gelding did not seem nearly so skittish around the big man as it did around Sigrid. "You're also my _brother's_ woman, and I'm not going to let you go into a battle alone."

"I'm _no one's woman_," she ground out between her teeth, furious both at the implication that she _belonged _to anyone like that and that she had been so obvious about her feelings.

"Sure you're not," Farkas said patiently. "He's just not been himself since you got to Jorrvaskr and you're just spending most nights in his quarters for the hell of it, yeah?"

"Farkas, I—"

He looked up at her, from her vantage point on the gelding, and snorted. "Look, Sigrid, I might not be the smartest man but I ain't blind. I see what I see. And like it or not, that's what I see. And like it or not, I'm coming with you. End of the damn story, aye?" For a second, he reminded her of nothing so much as his brother, that calmly determined look that said _no matter what you think, I'm not backing down._

She took a breath, ready to argue, and then abruptly deflated: she was exhausted, and would it really hurt to have him at her back? Watching out for her in the battle? "All right. You can come too. But I don't want to hear any of this _brother's woman_ nonsense in my hearing again."

"Aye aye, Cap'n," Farkas drawled.

Back at the camp, Sigrid changed into her own armor, glad to be rid of the dead man's clothes, and reported to Rikke that the false orders had been successfully planted. Farkas stood behind her, a solid column of _man_, towering over even the tall woman. He examined Rikke with interest, head cocked slightly to the side as the gruff legate addressed them.

"Good job," Rikke said, almost cheerfully for her. "I knew I gave the mission to the right person. Your next objective is Fort Dunstad. Meet the soldiers preparing for the attack, then join them in wiping out the rebels. Once you prevail we will garrison the fort. And your friend may come too, if he wishes. Well, soldiers? Are you up to the task?"

"Oh, I do wish to come," Farkas said, a very white smile flashing across his face. "It's been a while since I stormed a fort."

"It's as good as yours," Sigrid said. _Dunstad_…

"That's what I like to hear," Rikke said, and nodded sharply. "On your way."

"You do keep things interesting, shield-sister…" Farkas murmured, as they set out together.

It was strange, Sigrid thought, as she and Farkas approached Fort Dunstad, where the Imperial force was already waiting for them. She so clearly remembered slipping through the front gates with Farkas' brother, the fierce, brief battle through the three buildings of the fort. The bandit marking her with his knife. How far she'd come since that day. Now, as she stormed the gates with a force of several men behind her, including a shield-brother who would not leave her because he felt he owed her a bond of familial duty, because she was something like a sister even beyond the kinship of the shield. The Stormcloaks met them head on, the arrows raining down from the crenellations above. Several bounced from her armor, and she thanked Talos that she'd switched back from the stolen light armor. And she was glad that Farkas was there: fighting with him was not as natural or easy as with Vilkas, he was a little slower, a little less vicious, but he took the position of the shield to her sword, and together they cut a swathe through the Stormcloaks, who boiled out of the stonework, it seemed, just when she thought she'd cut them down. Back-to-back they fought, his sword swinging sideways, the great blade chopping the arm of a Stormcloak to a useless pulp of flesh and crushed bone as the man had tried to sneak in from the side. Sigrid, when she had a clear opening, unleashed the _thu'um_, forcing the soldiers to their knees before they could even approach. As they floundered on the ground, she cleaned up after them with the ebony sword, hacking, slashing, until her arms were numb and the blade stained with gore.

She was almost able to forget that they fought side by side with the Imperial soldiers, and at the end, found that they watched the blood-covered Companions with something akin to awe. "Stop that," Sigrid growled. "We fought just the same as you."

"Not like that," a young woman said, eyes wide. "Holy hells, not like that."

Later, in Solitude, Sigrid reported to Tullius for the third time, having bid goodbye to Farkas after Fort Dunstad and promising that she would _not_ storm any forts without him.

"Taking the Pale gives us another port in Dawnstar, and puts us within striking distance of Windhelm. That should make Ulfric a bit more cautious, eh?"

"Perhaps."

"Battles are won by trained and disciplined men. Wars are won by talented and exceptional individuals. I'm promoting you to Praefect. You've earned it."

"Thank you, General Tullius," Sigrid said, a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. The next rank was tribune, the rank her father had reached before a sword destroyed his leg. "What are my new orders, sir?"

"Report to our camp in the Rift. We have a few… surprises for the Stormcloaks lined up."

She almost found herself letting slip a _su'um ahrk morah_ instead of _gods be with you_, but she swallowed it down before it escaped her mouth.

So many responsibilities, so many faces that she wore for different people these days.

And yet, she could not bring herself to miss the days when she had been simply Sigrid, rootless, wild Sigrid, and that frightened her most of all.

* * *

><p>She was heading back to Whiterun, half-running half-walking when a screech overhead warned her that another dragon had found her. By now, they were becoming more annoying than terrifying, especially when met far from civilization, where she had no fear of civilian casualties. It was a dragon of a type that she had never seen before, golden scaled, marked with bronze, its two front incisors hanging over its lip and giving it a bit of a silly look, despite their razor sharpness. Its wings were thin white membranes among the shining gold, and though the coloring was different the beast was also smaller than most dragons she had encountered, almost… dainty, for a monster that could easily rip her to shreds. The eyes, though, with their cat-shaped slit pupils and rolling, fiery flashes as the lids snapped down over them and up again, nictating. She readied the ebony blade, taking a deep breath and preparing to Shout at it before charging in for the battle.<p>

"Wait, _Dovahkiin! Kreh haal!_" the dragon exclaimed. "I mean you no harm. Not immediately, anyway."

"You what?" Sigrid said, and was quite sure that her jaw had probably dropped open.

"I mean you no harm. Today I wish merely—_wah koraav_—to _see_ you, _Dovahkiin._"

"You're looking at me," Sigrid said warily. "That doesn't explain what you want."

"My name is Malvensonaan," the dragon rumbled, and she could have sworn that it sounded almost—sheepish.

As had been happening more and more often, when she heard dragon speech she could begin to pick out the meanings of its words, despite not having seen them on the walls. As though prolonged usage of the Shouts that she did know, letting the magic run through her, and absorbing the souls of the dragons had brought old memories to the forefront. "…little wind bard?" she said, staring at the dragon. In her experience dragons seemed to have names that spoke of power, like _Mirmulnir, _which meant _allegiance strong hunt _or _Paarthurnax, _which translated to _ambition overlord cruelty._ The dragon she had killed near Rorikstead on her most recent trip to Solitude was _fury burn wither_. Even Sahloknir, the Kynesgrove dragon who had fallen to her blade and Delphine's, meant _phantom sky hunt_. All of them masculine, all of them names that spoke of power and danger. _Little wind bard_ did not quite fit, somehow. "Really? Little wind bard?"

The dragon sniffed, sulfurous fumes spouting up into the air. "We are named _vahzah_. I _am_ a bard of the wing. _Lovaas _of the wind. And small."

_Has life always made this little sense? _Sigrid did not let down her guard, the sword and shield still raised, ready to block the brunt of a magical attack if the dragon chose to use its _thu'um_ against her. "Forgive me, then, if I request that you do _not_ sing."

"_Onik, Dovahkiin_," said Malvensonaan, a broad, toothy smile appearing on its—her?—face, wings flipping upward and down again, the gust of air from them ruffling through the long grass. "_Nid_, _laan_ _wah koraav_ _fin ronit se Alduin_. I am a—collector of curiosities. Of stories on the wind. And you—the greatest _tey _of them all." The dragon moved forward, inching on its powerful legs, the great head twining around to examine her from all sides. She had the strangest sensation that Malvensonaan could see straight through her, but that whatever it found there was still a puzzle.

"I might be Alduin's rival, but—why didn't you attack me immediately and examine me later?" she asked. "Every other dragon's just gone for the throat without even bothering to introduce themselves."

"As not all _muz_ are _pruzah_," the dragon-bard replied, "Not all _dov _are _bruniik voth nid ro._"

"I know not all dragons are savages, Paarthurnax—"

"Paarthurnax!" Malvensonaan scoffed. "That _wuth du'ul_? No. I speak not of his '_su'um ahrk morah'_," and in her (for Sigrid had the distinct, unquantifiable impression that Malvensonaan was a _her_) mouth the blessing sounded cruel and mocking. "I speak of _control_. Some of us are more than the _bahlok ahrk nah._ But do not mistake me, _Dovahkiin_," the bard said with another toothy smile, tongue flicking over one white incisor. "If I wished I could snap you up and sup the marrow from your bones, even as you come dressed in the carcasses of my kin. But it amuses me to see you now, what Alduin _faas_ _ful_, so small. _Ful joor_. So… _squishy. _You are much more amusing to me alive than dead."

"Thank you _so_ much, _little_ one," Sigrid drawled, raising one eyebrow, and the sword, in a wry salute. "You really know how to make a girl feel special. You must be so popular at parties. I bet your dance card's always full, huh?"

To her surprise, Malvensonaan began to laugh, a sound that reminded her of nothing so much as chunks of ice breaking off from the cliffs of Winterhold and falling into the Sea of Ghosts below with great, glassine crashes. "Oh, I _do_ like you, _mal_ _Dovahkiin_," she said. "Whether you _krii_ _froni_, or he is _hin_ _dinok_, what a tale you will give me to sing to the _venne_! _Lovaasi wah Dovahkiin!_" And with a flash of gold in the sunlight and a bunch of the powerful muscles of her legs, Malvensonaan took to the air again, leaving Sigrid on the ground, as confused as ever before. A dragon who did not immediately try to kill her, who conversed intelligently, but did not follow the way of the voice? Malvensonaan was nothing like Paarthurnax, it was true. And she did not doubt that the dragon-bard was still capable of great cruelty when the urge struck her, for all her talk about not being guided by her fury and hunger. There was that alien gleam in her golden eyes, a totally different set of values and morals than mere men possessed. But more importantly, Sigrid was beginning to realize that there was much about the _dov_ that she did not know, and much that she might never know.

But hers was not to reason why.

If she had to save the world for the sake of the _joorre_, how could that possibly include a Mundus in which dragons flew free?And furthermore—if she was right, and Malvensonaan _was_ female—what if they were able to breed again?

* * *

><p><strong>Dragon phrases:<strong>

_Vahzah—_true  
><em>Lovaas—<em>music/song  
><em>Onik—<em>wise  
><em>Nid, laan wah koraav fin ronit se Alduin<em>—No, I want to see the rival of Alduin  
><em>Tey<em>—tale  
><em>Muz—<em>men  
><em>Pruzah—<em>good  
><em>Bruniik voth nid ro<em>—savage with no balance  
><em>Wuth du'ul<em>—old crow  
><em>Su'um ahrk morah—<em>breath and focus  
><em>Bahlok ahrk nah<em>—hunger and fury  
><em>Faas ful—<em>fear so  
><em>Ful joor<em>—so mortal  
><em>Krii froni—<em>kill my kin  
><em>Hin dinok—<em>your death  
><em>Venne—<em>winds  
><em>Lovaasi wah Dovahkiin<em>—my song to you


	29. Tributes

_Blunt do I make mine enemy's blade,  
>Nor bites his sword or staff.<em>

—The Poetic Edda, from _Hávamál, _translated by Henry Adams Bellows

* * *

><p>Even though the battle had passed, every time Vilkas left Jorrvaskr something reminded him of the consequences of war. The wooden spikes hammered atop the walls of Whiterun as an extra defense remained, as did the burnt-out husk of Heimskr's modest hut, his tent pitched next to it. Innumerable feet and the carts dragging heavy catapults pounded the plains of Whiterun into a featureless mud and the grass remained dead and shredded, and the farms too were not unaffected. Severio Pelagia was dead, his home destroyed like so much tinder, his body charred and broken. It would take months if not years for Nimriel to repair the damage done to the fields, if she even wanted to repair it. The dour elf seemed disinclined to motion, however, and spent most of her hours now sitting silently in front of the destroyed farm buildings, staring at the ground. He shook his head. Easy to forget the price of war, within the walls of Whiterun.<p>

He sat on the Jorrvaskr porch, cleaning and sharpening his blade. Though Eorlund took care of the Companions' weapons, sometimes Vilkas felt better doing it himself. He was no smith, of course, but every warrior should know the proper way to care for his weapons. Especially the Master of Arms of the Companions of Jorrvaskr. It was calming, to oil the whetstone and put his strength into drawing it down the blade. Eorlund used a grindstone now, as he grew older, but when Vilkas took the time to care for his weapons himself he preferred to do it by hand, to lose himself in the repetitive but precise motions. It was here that Farkas found him as he returned home from Dawnstar, payment in hand, grinning. "Skald wasn't as much of a fight as I thought he'd be," the big man said. "Cheap old bugger paid up right away, and a good thing too, now that the Pale's been retaken."

"Good," Vilkas said, a little absently, almost unhearing. He wondered whether he should tell Farkas of Kodlak's new discovery. Ever since keeping the news that he had gone searching for their parents from Farkas, he'd felt keenly that such a thing was not right. But Kodlak had specifically asked him not to mention the discovery to anyone else, and so he did not. "Wait a minute—retaken? Who's in charge now, then?"

"Merilis," Farkas replied. "After we retook Dunstad, Rikke gave her a nice new seat for her troubles."

"Of course," Vilkas said. She was one of Dawnstar's few prominent citizens, a former legionnaire. Probably jumped at the chance to sit in the Jarl's throne, or at the very least avoid being constantly threatened with execution by the paranoid Skald. Then his eyes narrowed. "_We_ retook Dunstad?"

"Go on, brother," Farkas said, with a very smug smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, "I know you want to ask."

"I won't give you the bloody satisfaction."

"Fine, fine," Farkas said, surrendering, for he was not so bloody-minded as his brother. "Ran into your woman when I was leaving the White Hall—"

"She's not my wom—"

"Course she's not," Farkas said patiently, though with the sort of dry, innocent air that Vilkas found so infuriating. In anyone else, he would have been able to tell for sure if he was being mocked. With Farkas, it was anyone's best guess whether he was having a secret laugh at your expense, or whether he was just that unaware of the effect of his words. The bland innocence did not flicker. "That's exactly what she said. Now shut up for one bloody minute and let me tell you what happened." And he ignored Vilkas' glare, and told him, briefly, of the battle to regain the Pale and Sigrid's role in it.

"Dunstad must have been garrisoned by Stormcloaks very recently," Vilkas said, when Farkas had finished.

Farkas shrugged. "Recently enough. And now they're dead."

"And Sigrid…?" he asked, as they went up the stairs and into Jorrvaskr, quiet and calm this early in the morning.

"Alive and well, when I left her. She's a good fighter," Farkas said, and then grinned. "You know, Vilkas, I remember when we came back from Dustman's Cairn for her test and you had _reservations_…"

"Brother," Vilkas said, a mild warning, though if the force of a glare had heat behind it, Farkas would have burnt to a crisp right there in the mead hall.

"It wouldn't hurt to admit you're wrong once in a while—" Farkas called after him as he stalked back outside.

Thankfully, the rest of the day had its own distractions. He set about remedying his own neglected training, practicing the forms until his muscles ached and sweat soaked his back and hair. It was a brutal sort of dance, the sword-forms, but a dance nevertheless, feet moving in time with the parries and thrusts. He had been dancing this dance for years, but he never tired of it, never tired of losing himself in the comforting familiarity of the steps. When he finally finished and looked up, he saw that Velwyn sat perched on a table at the edge of the practice grounds, watching him with an intent, hawk-like expression.

"Will I ever be able to do that?" the boy asked.

"If you practice," Vilkas said, with a shrug.

"But you won't even let me hold a blade!" Velwyn complained, slipping off of the table and standing with his chin jutting out stubbornly, his arms crossed over his chest.

"You're not ready," Vilkas said, to his surprise, rather patiently. He remembered his own frustration growing up in Jorrvaskr and watching the warriors sparring, practicing, and then leaving. The mysterious promise of the swords and battle axes that they carried, the frustration when Jergen and Kodlak told him exactly the same thing he had just told Velwyn: _you're not ready, boy_, when all he had wanted from the time he'd recovered from their ordeal was to pick up a blade and go out into the world and wreck vengeance for whatever had created the grey film over his memories. Even as a boy, he'd been bloody-minded. He could not say what, exactly, drove Velwyn, but he could recognize the boy's urge. "Even my brother and I weren't allowed to pick up a blade for years, and we practically grew up in this hall."

"Really?" Velwyn said, frowning a little. It was clear he did not like that answer. "So what did you do instead?"

"Exactly what I'm having you do," Vilkas replied. "Come with me, boy," he said, and gestured for Velwyn to follow him. The boy did, obediently, up the steps to the Skyforge. Eorlund had not yet risen, but the tools of his trade remained spread out before him, the hammers and the anvils, the grindstone silent and still. "When you helped your parents with the accounts, did you begin without understanding numbers?"

"Of course not," Velwyn said, offended.

"Did you begin without understanding how to add and subtract them?"

"That would be impossible," the boy replied.

"Exactly," Vilkas said. "This is the same. If your blade were to break, would you know how to reforge it?"

"No," Velwyn muttered.

"If it lost its edge, would you know how to sharpen it?"

"No…"

"If a man who outweighed you by fifty pounds struck your sword, would you be strong enough to avoid being disarmed?"

"No…"

"And if you were forced to run for miles through the night in the woods in order to make a particular destination in time, would you be able to do it?"

"Of course not!"

"What makes you think, boy, that this is any different than the accounts?" Vilkas asked. "If anything, it's worse—when you make a living by your sword instead of your pen, you have to know _everything_, inside and out. Why do you think I practice the sword forms whenever I have the chance?"

"I dunno, to keep yourself in shape?" Velwyn hazarded.

"Yes, and no," Vilkas said. "Everything in that dance are steps that your body will learn, until it can respond unthinkingly when you're fighting. Everything that you learn, everything that we'll teach you if you stay here, is done so that you understand _all_ of the steps. How to condition your body, how to take care of your weapon. You can't learn how to fight until you know all of the ins and outs of the tools you're using to do it."

"I _guess_ that makes sense…" Velwyn said reluctantly, though he threw a longing gaze at the neatly lined racks of weapons.

"Of course it does," Vilkas said, and then signed. "Look, this isn't anything that Farkas and I didn't go through ourselves. It's one thing when a warrior comes to us after years of living by their blade, like Sigrid or Skjor, but if you're starting from nothing, there's certain steps that you have to take just to ensure that you don't get killed in your first fight. I trained for two years before Jergen even let me pick up a blade, and another year before Kodlak gave me the first sword I could call my own."

"_That long_?" Velwyn said, so dismayed that Vilkas chuckled a little.

"Aye, that long, boy," he replied. "Two years of push ups and running and lifting heavy weights and studying the construction and care of weapons before I was even allowed to put a finger on a sword. But it's for a good purpose. I'm still here talking to you, after all."

"But I already know how to use a blade," Velwyn began to argue. "My father's guard were teaching me."

Vilkas snorted, disdainful. Guardsmen, especially of the less-than-legal variety, were never exactly paragons of proper form. "In that case, it's going to be even longer. You're going to have any number of bad habits we're going to have to force you to unlearn. In the Companions, you're going to learn it _right _or you're not going to bloody learn it at all."

"But—" the boy protested.

Vilkas fixed him with the level, steely look. And prepared himself to give a speech. He didn't _like_ doing it, but Kodlak had given him enough of them over the years—and sometimes they were required. "Stop arguing, boy. You're going to have to learn to take orders if you stay with us. And you'll have to learn the first lesson: in the Companions, this isn't just about _you_. This isn't about your pride, or what _you _want. It's about what's best for your shield-siblings, for the Companions as a whole. Your shield-siblings rely on your sword, on your strength. They will count on the fact that you know what you're doing. That you'll have their backs in a battle. There aren't many of us, and on a mission, it's going to be you and probably one other man at best. _You_ will be their sword and shield, boy, and you don't fuck around with learning the proper way when someone else's life is in your hands like that. There's a reason we do things the way we do, and a reason you'll follow them, or you'll fail. Now. Are you done arguing, or are you going to continue to prove that you don't belong here after all?"

"Done arguing," Velwyn said, sounding totally and completely dejected. He couldn't even meet Vilkas in the eye, instead, staring intently at his shoes as though they had become the most interesting thing in the world to him."Sir."

"That's what I like to hear," Vilkas said, and then sighed. The boy's chin trembled a little, and in that moment he remembered his own frustration in his training, the agonizing worry that he would never actually be allowed to prove himself on the battlefield. That he would never be able to avenge his parents. And Velwyn was young, in many ways younger than Vilkas had been, at that age. He sighed, and relented just a bit. "Come on, boy. If we head down to the mead hall, there might still be some sweetrolls left from breakfast."

"Really?" Velwyn said, cheering instantly, still at the age where the promise of sugary food could lift any foul mood. Again, he was reminded that he had never been that young. "Race you!" And Velwyn pelted off at a speed that showed that whatever his complaints, at least he hadn't been faking his efforts on the laps.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, with no signs of the woman's return. Vilkas sparred with Njada in the afternoon and ran Ria through drills afterward. By the time that night fell, he was tired but not unpleasantly so, the burn of his muscles almost comforting rather than painful. These were the days that reminded him exactly how important Jorrvaskr was to him: just the simple business of making sure that everything ran smoothly, that all of his shield-siblings were well-prepared and content. That everyone returned, safe and uninjured, in the evening.

After dinner, he sat at the desk in his room with the door open, reading a book, something he hadn't had the time to do in weeks. The candle had just begun to burn out its wick when he heard footsteps coming down the hall, and he knew instantly that it was her. Not just the confident lope of her feet, but the smell of her heartbeat, a coppery, steady tattoo. The wolf's nose could pick out delicate, shaded scents after years of practice in deciphering the clues: strong emotions, the smell of a lie, information lost on the average person. But in the last few weeks, he found that even his keen senses had gone a bit mad when it came to her. Perhaps it was the amount of time they'd spent together. Perhaps it was the deeper emotion layering his thoughts regarding her. Regardless of the reason, he sometimes had to concentrate to drown out the noise, the awareness.

She poked her head around the door frame, grinning. "Hello there," she said, shooting a significant look at his book, open but now forgotten on the desk. "I see you've managed to become even _more_ boring in my absence. Thank Ysmir I'm back, eh?"

Whatever he had expected, seeing her again for the first time after the revelation, did not happen. "Yes, thank Ysmir you're back," he drawled, one eyebrow raised. "Because I don't _actually_ enjoy pleasant, quiet days where I actually get my bloody work done. I'm _so _glad to see you."

"I think you are," she replied, still with that infuriating grin, as she strolled into the room as if she owned it, shutting the door behind her and sitting down on his bed, legs crossed. Whenever she had returned to Jorrvaskr, it must have been early enough to wash and change, for she was dressed in a loose, comfortable shirt and breeches, and barefoot. "And I think you're going to be disappointed when I go back to the whelps' quarters. You've been busy, at least—too busy to shave?" she asked, teasing, as she eyed his face, which in the interim of the journeying back and forth and the battle had grown from his usual few days' stubble to a full-grown beard.

"You're one to talk," he retorted. "You've actually got _hair_."

The smile did not fade as she shook her head, which was indeed looking quite shaggy—at this length he could see that it curled around her ears. "I was going to have Tilma cut it for me, but she's already abed." She ran her hand through it, experimentally, leaving it sticking up at strange angles.

"I could do it," he said, much to his surprise, partially because he did not want her to go.

And hers. Her eyes widened. "You would?"

"If you trust me with a blade near your ears," he said dryly.

"Good gods, man, I've trusted you with a blade at my back," she said. "I suppose this wouldn't be any different."

"Wait until you've escaped with your ears intact before you say anything."

It did not take her long to retrieve Tilma's shears, though for a few moments he thought she would not return. Instead, she slid back through the door, shutting it behind her, and once again settled herself down on his bed. "Come here," she said, and he went, taking the shears from her hand and sitting behind her as she leaned her head over the floor.

"Don't squirm," he ordered.

"Please," she said, all bravado and bluster. "I've done this often enough that I know how it's done. Just don't bloody _injure_ me. That's all I ask."

In response, he ran his hand through her hair, almost experimentally. In weeks preceding he had pulled it, yanked it, and gripped the back of her skull in his hand, but he had never taken the time to actually do this. It was thick and full, and even though she had cut it mere weeks before, grew quickly. Under his fingers, she stilled, a small shiver running through her shoulders, frozen like a deer in the light of a torch. He pulled gently, tangling his hands in it deeper, harder, thumb stroking the curve of the back of her head. Another shudder ran through her and he realized that her eyes had slipped shut, breathing stilled. And then he began to cut carefully, tugging up bits of hair and clipping them loose. She relaxed under his fingers, so gradually that he almost didn't realize how tense she'd been to start. Belatedly, he remembered what she'd told him about her first lover: the man had quite literally stabbed her in the back and cut her throat. To allow him so close to her, and with a blade, however dull… he exhaled. She trusted him. She had told him so, but the moment now showed it without so many words.

"I am glad you're back in one piece," he said, after a moment of silence.

"Me too," she replied. "Have your brother to thank for that one."

"Oh, I did," he said dryly, thinking of their conversation earlier that morning and her indignation had she known.

"Will you come with me the next time?" she asked, almost hesitantly. "I leave for the Rift in the morning."

"Yes," was all he said, but there was much more that remained unsaid in that one word. Rather than elaborate, he continued the work, the blade sliding close to her skull, for she normally wore it cropped short, almost shaved. Every time the edge of the shears touched her, running almost against her scalp, he could hear her heart beating faster, her breath shallow; feel the heat of her. For once she did not say a thing, merely allowed him to touch her with his fingers and the blade alike, each a caress of a different sort, eyes closed, her skin warming beneath his hands. He drew the edge of the shears up the nape of her neck before he clipped the fringe of the hair there, teasing her with the sharp edge. She exhaled sharply, her hands gripping the edge of the bed, and he could almost feel her fingers bruising against his arms, gripping with all of the desperate strength her body possessed.

"Milady," he teased her, "I do think you're enjoying this." He was enjoying it, too, if he was being honest with himself—with every increase of her pulse he fought the urge to move his hands lower, and to concentrate on the task at hand.

She would have whipped her head around to glare at him, he was sure, except that the blades were now moving close to her ears. And so instead she sat stock still and growled under her breath, frustrated. "I…" she trailed off, and then exhaled again in a soft groan as his fingers followed the path of the blade, stroking the soft skin behind her ear. "_Oh_, that's bloody unfair, that is."

He ran a finger down her cheek and she turned her head, kissing his knuckles. Once. Twice, the wet heat of her lips trailing along his skin. And then abruptly, she twisted, grabbing for the shears. He allowed her to disarm him, did not protest when she pushed him down on the bed. "I'm going to remember this one," he said, with a smirk. "To add to the list of weaknesses of the Dovahkiin… Haircuts."

"If you tell _anyone_ about this," she replied fiercely, "I'm going to maim you."

"I'm glad you're home," he said, and she ducked her head away so that she did not have to meet his eyes, though her hands on his body told him that she was relieved to be here with him as intensely as he was to have her.

* * *

><p>They set off for the Rift together in the morning, lightly but efficiently packed. By now, there had been enough upheaval that Vilkas' system of ensuring that Jorrvaskr continued running in his absence was an efficient machine. And if the Pale had been any indication, it would be a few days' work at least but possibly not more, and probably storming another fort as well. Rikke had been vague about the camp's location, stating only that it was due south of Ivarstead, in the hills. That was enough for Sigrid; it would be difficult to avoid stumbling upon a camp of men wearing skirts. She shared this observation with Vilkas, as they took the road past Valtheim Towers, and he laughed, shaking his head.<p>

"Doesn't surprise me," he said. "Not from a bunch of milk-drinkers."

"Milk-drinkers!" she exclaimed. "Excuse _me_, Vilkas, but you're speaking to a bloody legionnaire."

"Yes, but you're not _really _a legionnaire," he said.

"I took the oath."

"Yes, but you're… you're a Companion, first and foremost. Look at them: how long did it take them to get this damned war rolling along?"

"A while…"

"And what have we gotten done since we've started _helping_?"

"Regained one Hold and protected another," she admitted, begrudgingly. It was cold, the wind blowing in heavy gusts down the road and catching the snow in swirls. A long winter, and she found herself longing for spring, despite the warmth of the fur she wore tucked beneath her armor. The bite of the snowflakes against her face burned.

"You see?" Vilkas said. "When they can manage to get anything done on their own, then I'll reconsider whether they're a bunch of milk-drinkers or not. If all it took was a little finesse, and storming a bunch of old forts, we'd have this country retaken within a month."

"That's the plan," Sigrid said, with a flippant salute, straightening her shoulders again. Suddenly, despite the weight that she had felt upon leaving the Jarl's palace at Dragonsreach for the first time, she felt confident that she could shoulder the burden. With Vilkas at her side and the rest of the Companions at her back, for this brief moment it seemed that they could take on the entire world.

"It's not always going to be so easy."

"I know, I know. But I think that with you and I and the force of rumor and the _Dovahkiin_… I think it _might _just be insane enough to work."

"I don't know if you get crazier every day, or if I am," he muttered.

"Probably both," she said. "Come on, Vilkas, _smile_. We're going to have the whole bloody country at our feet." When he did not reply, merely glanced sideways at her with a small frown creasing his forehead, she lost the forward push of her bravado. "What?"

"That just doesn't sound like _you_," he said. "That's all. You're not a conquerer."

"Well, no…" Her confidence was rapidly replaced by the grip of unease. Her previous worries about the ambition and cruelty inherent in the dragon's soul returned in full force. "But it's got to be done, Vilkas. If we don't stop this war, it's going to tear Skyrim apart, and the dragons are going to destroy whatever's left in the wreckage."

"Just think about why and how you're feeling this way," he said shortly. "When I first took the beast-blood, it took me a while to figure out which of my urges were _mine_, and which the call of the blood. I still can't always tell. The longer it goes on, the deeper it worms itself into your spirit. I don't want that for you."

The roughness of the words, a shade of emotion that worked itself into his voice, stopped her dead in her tracks. She knew he cared for her well-being, but for her soul…? A strange warmth twisted her stomach, similar to the feeling she had had the night before as she let him take a blade to her neck, the danger and heat of it comforting and terrifying all at once. Lately, the more she tried to puzzle out her feelings about the situation, the less she felt she understood.

"Sigrid?"

"Yes. I'm coming," she said, and began walking again, that familiar road to Ivarstead.

As they rounded the mountain, having walked on in companionable silence and killed a bear in equally companionable harmony, Sigrid said, "Whatever you think about the other legionnaires, you're going to like Legate Rikke, at least."

"Will I now?"

"Well, you like _me_," Sigrid said, with a mischievous grin. "And she's cut from the same cloth. Nothing much to look at but quick with a blade. And she doesn't shy from leading her men into battle."

"I recall a… _stirring_ speech."

Sigrid rolled her eyes. "I know you mistrust speeches, but she is more than that, my friend. You only saw her in battle, but it's in the quieter moments that she shows her worth. She's… got _conviction_. She's fighting for the right reasons, I think. So before you write off _all _ legionnaires, consider that there are men and women like Rikke and my father amongst their number."

"Aye," Vilkas said. "And there may well be a few ripe apples in a rotten bushel."

"You're taking this trek with me, Vilkas," she finally said, exasperated. "You're a part of it, rotten apples and all."

"You really believe in this, don't you?" he said, almost wonderingly.

"I believe in stopping this damn war, and stopping the dragons," she said shortly. "That's it. That's all."

Sigrid stopped briefly in Ivarstead to grab a quick bite to eat and say hello to Wilhelm, the friendly bartender of the Vilemyr Inn, and see whether he had heard any rumors that might be of use to Rikke in the Rift. "Sigrid," he said cheerfully when they opened the door, "How's my favorite pilgrim doing this fine afternoon?" His eyebrows raised, curious, as he took in the new armor. "Now ain't that interesting." As Vilkas came in behind her, she realized he was standing just a little too close, much closer than he would have done normally, frowning at the innkeeper over her shoulder. The two men sized each other up suspiciously and she sighed. Leave it to _that arrogant skeever-shit _to get strangely territorial at all of the wrong times. "_Stop it_," she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

"Stop _what_?"

"_That_. Stop it."

He frowned at her, but moved away for the rest of the conversation. Wilhelm hadn't heard anything about Stormcloak movements, but he did believe that the barrow next to the inn was still haunted. "We'll, ah, look into it when we get a chance," she promised, attempting to hide a grin as the burly innkeeper described the ghost with great gusto ("glowing, he were, like a…like a ghost!"). "Good day, Wilhelm."

"Good day, my friend," he said, though he gave Vilkas a scowl as the Companions moved for the door again.

Outside, Sigrid didn't even bother to say anything to him, merely stared at him for a long moment and shook her head.

When they finally reached the Imperial camp, the sun had set behind the mountains, and all that she could hear in the distance was the clatter of the camp, the whistle of the wind in the icy tree branches, and the roar of a dragon in the distance. She tensed, looking up suddenly at the sky, but wherever the beast roosted, it was too far away to be an immediate danger. Only then did she relax, leading the way into the camp. She could see that Vilkas eyed it with disdain, from the spiked wooden barricades mostly unguarded to the disorganized sprawl of men seated on benches, sitting around the fire, or sleeping in tents; she could tell that he was sizing it up and judging how he would attack it, how he would sweep through and dismantle the defenses easily. "Don't," she said.

He curled his lip at her, and snorted. "I'll behave."

She led him straight to Rikke's tent, the largest and the furthest from the entrance to the camp, nestled up against the safe and comforting wall of the mountains. If anyone was going to get the drop on her, they'd have to drop from several hundred feet of sheer stone first. That, at least, was well-chosen. They found the legate in her usual posture, bent over a map and studying it by candlelight, stacks of papers with troop numbers and movements and weapons costs piled up atop it in a wild disarray. Sigrid was reminded, briefly, of Vilkas, of his insistence of doing business at all hours of the night, no matter how tired he happened to be. Maybe that was why she instinctively trusted Rikke. She _cared_.

"Reporting in for duty, Legate," she said, and Rikke looked up, startled.

"Ah, Praefect," she said. "Good evening." And then she saw Vilkas, and did a double-take. "Did you…shrink?"

"Twins," Sigrid cut in, before the man could say something offensive or Rikke could ask any more questions. "This is Farkas' older brother."

"Ah," Rikke said. "Praefect, please do not make this a habit. My superiors are already a bit… on edge at the irregularities."

"It won't happen again, sir," Sigrid said quickly, to preclude Vilkas' sharp reply. "Or at least, it won't be anyone else. And they are trustworthy. I'm a legionnaire but I'm also a Companion. They…don't take kindly to shield-siblings fighting alone."

"Yes," Rikke said, with a small smile. "I know how that is. But take care who sees you. The General is not so… understanding of Nord ways as he might be."

"Yes, sir."

"Now, on to business. You're going to Riften. My spies report that the Jarl's steward, Anuriel, has arrangements with the Thieves' Guild that would be rather… embarrassing if made public," Rikke began.

Sigrid's stomach sank; she did not enjoy this subterfuge, or the types of assignments that made it necessary. But she had pledged her sword and her life to the legion, and she would do what it took to end the war, personal sense of honor offended or not. She could feel Vilkas tense behind her, and knew that he did not like where this lead any more than she did. "Yes, sir. What will I be doing with this… information?"

"I need you to find evidence of her corrupt activities, and use it to gain a measure of her 'cooperation,'" Rikke said, fixing both of them with a cool blue gaze. "Whatever information you can get out of her will be useful. And make no mistake, this is no easy mission: it will require stealth and discretion. The Jarl's guards won't take kindly to anyone rummaging through her steward's private quarters. Can you do this?"

"Yes, sir," she said, though she thought, _but I won't be happy about it._

"Good. I can always count on you, can't I?"

"I should hope so, sir," Sigrid replied wryly.

Outside of Riften after a mostly silent trek across the Rift, she took the opportunity, in the middle of a fight with a spriggan to demand, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

He kicked a charging bear in the throat and, as it read up on its hind legs to roar in rage, stabbed it in the stomach. "What do you mean?"

"You've been acting—strangely since we left Jorrvaskr," Sigrid said, gritting her teeth, as the buzzing bits of the spriggan stung her exposed skin.

"I'm uneasy," was all that he said, "And when I'm uneasy, snapping at you and killing things makes me feel better."

"Fantastic," she replied, as she cut down a charging deer. "You must be feeling brilliant right about now."

"Actually, I do feel a bit more cheery."

"_Fantastic. _You know I'm not dragging you out to a spriggan grove every time you get in a _mood_."

"Nor will you have to."

With a squeal, the charging pig met its end at the steel toe of her boot, a kick that drove it to the ground. "Good. Because we can't afford missteps in the city. I don't _think_ we'll have any issues with the Thieves' Guild, for all I didn't help them the last time I was here, but you never know. Keep your guard up." They stood in the clearing in the lee of the rock, a clearing that would have been beautiful and calm and peaceful, with its bare trees above and the smell of the open lake in the distance, if it hadn't just been turned into an open-air charnel house with the blood of the beasts staining the snow dark. For nature spirits, spriggans surely did not give a damn what happened to the nature they warped and perverted beneath their control.

"What were you doing in Riften, again?" he said, as he wiped his sword on the pelt of the dead bear.

"Remind me to tell you about the crazy old man I pulled out of a sewer when we have a spare moment," she muttered, stalking on her way towards the gates.

"The sewer?" he asked. "Really?"

"Oh yes," she replied. "Just another glamorous day in the life of the bloody Dragonborn, mucking around in the sewers and nearly getting eaten by a cannibal chef. Now let's go. I don't want to risk anyone catching us at it. Would you distract the court with Companions business? Or something?"

"Whatever milady commands."

"I'm not your lady. I'm not _a _lady."

"As you wish."

Riften smelled just as terrible as she remembered it smelling. She could only imagine how awful it must have been for him, with his sensitive nose. An overload of information, all of it unpleasant. Even with her untrained beast-senses, she could pick out the scent of a rotting corpse beneath all of the garbage, and when she looked over the edge of the wooden fence that blocked the upper walkways from the lower canals, she saw that a man in black and gray thieves' guild leathers floated there, his throat slit. His hand still clutched a silver candlestick. "Charming," Sigrid said, scowling at the canal. "I wonder why anyone _wouldn't_ want to live here."

He put his hand on her shoulder, guiding her away from the macabre sight. "So how do you want to do this? I'll see whether the Jarl has any work for the Companions, and you can play dumb if you get caught sneaking into the steward's rooms?"

"I think it's safer that way rather than just attempting to get in there," Sigrid said, under her breath. "We're not exactly… unnoticeable people."

"Right," he said, as they walked up the stairs of the imposing stone facade of Mistveil Keep. "Let's go."

She told herself that she was not nervous, but that was a lie. She did not _do_ sneaking around, and she disliked blackmail even more so. Sneaking through a closed environment _felt_ wrong, on top of everything else. She was used to stalking animals through the forest, using scent and the wind to throw them off, using the trees and boulders as camouflage. Attempting to remain unseen indoors was just—not what she did. Some things could be applied, like placing her foot ball down and rolling the rest of it to follow, and keeping close to the walls where the floor boards were less likely to creak, but in corridors patrolled by guards, neither of those things would be of much use. She kept to the side of the room as they came into the Jarl's hall and Vilkas approached, the arrogant court, including the Bosmer steward, arrayed before them in all their finery. Laila Law-Giver knew him, and greeted him appropriately. Shockingly, she provided the distraction herself, however unwittingly:

"Vilkas of the Companions, it has been a long while since you have crossed the threshold of Mistveil Keep. Well met."

"Well met, Jarl," he said.

"Now—I hear you have seen a dragon? Slain one?" And they were off, with the courtiers, many of whom had only heard second hand accounts listening wide-eyed, and even the guards inching closer to listen, though they should not have. He flicked a glance sideways at her: _go, hurry_, and she did, sidling into the corridor behind the Jarl's throne. If she remembered correctly, the steward's room would be to the right. She knew she must present a comical appearance, awkwardly attempting to move quickly while remaining silent, and she breathed a sigh of relief once she reached the door and closed it behind her. Now she would have the time to look around, though her heart was still pounding, the fear that she would be caught and exposed as a thief. _What would father say if he could see me now?_ she wondered, and sighed. He'd probably condone it, for it was in the service of the Legion. The desk held nothing of use, and she flipped up the blanket of the woman's bed to see whether anything had been secreted beneath. Nothing on the bookshelf. The dresser…? She pulled the drawer open hastily, and saw a folded piece of paper. Flipping it open, she saw that it was from Maven Black-Briar. _Jackpot._

As she left the steward's room, not even bothering to hide now that she had what she had come for, a guard did a double-take, squawking, "You're not supposed to be in there!"

"Sorry, took a wrong turn looking for the privy," Sigrid said, shooting a bright smile in his direction as she rushed back into the anteroom.

Vilkas had finished his recitation, and when he saw her emerge from the hallway, his brows raised in an infinitesimal question. She nodded, and he relaxed, asking the Jarl for her leave to go. She granted it, and while Sigrid approached Anuriel from behind, he struck up a conversation with Unmid Snow-Shod, keeping him from moving towards the Bosmer as he had appeared ready to do.

"Recognize this?" Sigrid whispered, nudging Anuriel in the back with one finger and flashing a glimpse of the letter at her.

"Not here!" Anuriel exclaimed, aghast, as she rose quickly from her seat. "Come with me. Stay close, and the guards will leave you alone." She gestured for Sigrid to follow her, back off of the dais and through the hall to her room, where the bed was still unmade, the unmistakeable signs of Sigrid's search still available to plain view.

Anuriel shut the door behind Sigrid, and then turned, her hands on her hips and a fiercely defensive expression on her face. "I suppose you're here to _extort_ something from me? Well? What is it?"

"What if this letter were made public?" Sigrid said. She didn't even bother to beat around the bush; subtlety had never been her strong suit.

"It would _ruin_ me. I have a good thing going here. The Jarl benefits from my more creative arrangements as well, though it'd be impossible for her to admit that."

"You rebels are all such gods-damned hypocrites," Sigrid exclaimed, before she could stop herself.

"So… you're an Imperial spy?" Anuriel asked, her expression sharpening as she took Sigrid's measure again, as though seeing her for the first time. She was sure that the sudden guilty expression probably did not help matters, but she was a warrior, not a secret agent. "Interesting. I have no strong love for the Stormcloaks, but I can't say I'm all that fond of the Empire, either. This war of yours makes it difficult for a resourceful woman to advance her interests. Perhaps we can find a way for both of us to prosper from this… unfortunate discovery?"

"What kind of agreement did you have in mind?"

"What if I told you about a large shipment of gold and weapons?" Anuriel asked with a smug smile, as though she knew that it would be enough to broker the deal.

"Go on," Sigrid said, despising the Bosmer with an intensity that surprised her. The worst part of the smugness was that it was well-deserved. This was exactly what Rikke had wanted. "I'm listening."

"Oh no. I'm no fool," Anuriel said with a sniff. "You'll learn what you need to know once we come to an agreement."

"Fine," Sigrid growled. "How much are we talking about?"

"Enough to make a significant difference in the war," said the steward.

She thought it over for a moment: significant difference—that could mean a real, significant difference, or an _I'm in the shitter and I'll say almost anything to get out of it_ difference. She had used both qualifications herself, over the years. But she did not feel like bargaining with the woman like a fishwife. Time was wasting, if she continued. And so, she muttered, "All right. It's a deal. Where can I find this shipment?"

"They're taking it by wagon to Windhelm. If you hurry, you'll catch them before they get far. It'll be a fairly slow moving caravan; the shipment is quite heavy, and guarded by many men. Now. Let's pretend we never had this little…discussion."

"Consider it done," Sigrid said, and spat on the floor. "Go back to your schemes, woman." Anuriel ignored the insult, and swept regally from the room. Sigrid followed her out, wondering how much the war would force her to compromise her own morals before it was through.

After reporting back to Rikke, who seemed well pleased with the information, it was not difficult to find Hadvar and his men.

"Well, well," said Hadvar, his voice lowered, "Look who it is. How've you been?"

"I'm all right, I suppose. How are you?" Sigrid asked politely, attempting to avoid giggling at the sheer absurdity of the polite conversation while stalking a caravan through the hills.

"Good to hear," Hadvar said, and then glanced uneasily from Sigrid to Vilkas. "Listen. I need this to go well… this is my first real solo command since they promoted me after Whiterun." For a moment, his eyes looked out into the distance, as though remembering the day. She knew how that felt, knew the sleepless nights she'd had after her first large-scale battle, which in turn was nothing compared to the war of attrition that followed. It was easy to forget that some of the legionnaires, though only a few years younger than she, had managed to miss out on the experience that had shaped her so intensely. "You know…" Hadvar said. "Some nights when I close my eyes, I see the battle stretched out before me. Like I'm still there, you know?" The sad hound's eyes turned on them, all liquid warmth and emotion. "Do the men you've killed haunt you? Mine do."

"Only a beast kills without feeling," she said, at the same time that Vilkas said, "It gets easier."

Hadvar looked from one of them to the other, and then grunted. "I suppose you're right. And they do say that it gets easier. But I'm not sure if that's a _good _thing. But, ah, never mind all that. What brings you out this way?"

"Enemy wagon loaded with coin and weapons," Sigrid said. "Got the information out of the Jarl's steward. We're going to capture it."

"Funny," Hadvar said, looking out at the caravan spread out below them, two wagons and about fifteen men. "We've been tracking this lot for the last day or so, and it just so happens that their wheel's broken. I was wondering what was in the backs of the wagons. Whether it was worth the risk."

"Well, we're taking them, one way or another."

"I have a plan…" Hadvar said, though a bit uncertainly, looking to the Companions for approval.

_Don't say _anything, she mouthed at Vilkas, for she knew that he was going to make a snide remark about the worth of the legionnaires. "What's your plan, Hadvar?" she asked. "This is your command, after all."

The young man puffed out his chest, just a bit, and looked down at the caravan. "Someone will rush in and create a distraction," he said. "And then, while they're fighting, we'll hit them with a volley of arrows, and then we'll come in from the sides to clean up the mess." He paused, and then slid a glance sideways at them. "So? What do you think?"

"I think that sounds like a fine plan," she said.

"And who's going to be the distraction?" Vilkas asked dryly.

"Well," Hadvar said, "I suppose anyone who volunteers…"

"We'll do it," Sigrid said, shooting another warning look at him. What on earth had gotten into the man? Since they'd left Jorrvaskr he'd been nothing but trouble. Getting territorial with bloody Wilhelm of all people, and now giving Hadvar a hard time.

"Thanks, friend," Hadvar said, sounding relieved. "All right. On my order, you'll go. Don't worry, we'll have your back."

In the end, it was not much of a fight. The distraction worked admirably, a little too well. After rushing swiftly down the hill, heels pounding on the gravelly soil, Vilkas and Sigrid found themselves in the midst of a group of Stormcloaks swarming them like angry hornets. However else he might have frustrated her this day, she was glad to have him at her side, and at her back. It was different fighting with him than with Farkas; for all that she understood him, he was more aggressive than his brother, more given to rushing in for a more risky hack or slash. Taking the risk himself to protect her, or even Hadvar, as the legionnaires joined the fray. She found herself relieved to have a good honest fight, no dragons female or otherwise, no spriggans, no magic. Just her sword and her shield and her man, an efficient killing machine as she spun to meet the war hammer of a Stormcloak woman, catching the worst of the blow on her shield and head-butting her with her helmet, the crunch of bone and shriek of pain all the reward she needed. The blood on her face. It might have been savage, it might have been giving in to some darker urge that she shouldn't have, but in the moment she could feel only _joy_.

The fight was over quickly, with the two of them and the legionnaires assisting, and with the element of surprise. She was barely even breathing hard when it was over, though the deep exhaustion of a day constantly in motion was beginning to sink in. She bid Hadvar goodbye, as he excitedly told them he planned to stay to guard the caravan, and clapped him on the back. "Good job, Praefect," she said, and then looked at Vilkas. "Time to head back to the camp, I think."

* * *

><p>"Good work," Legate Rikke said, when they came into her tent to update her on the status of the caravan, "I'll send some men with a wagon to collect the prize. We can use the weapons here, and I'll pass on the coin to Solitude. In the meantime, we're about to serve out the mess for the evening, and then catch a few hours' sleep before I send you out to Fort Greenwall—you'll travel with the soldiers and join them in wiping out the rebels. We'll garrison the fort when you're through, which I have no doubt should be easy enough for you. But in the meantime—relax. Have a mug of ale. You've earned it, I think."<p>

While Sigrid chatted with the soldiers in the camp, Vilkas took the measure of Legate Rikke. He could see why the woman instinctively liked her. The legate was all business and heart, a bluff exterior that concealed a heart that appeared to sincerely care for the men under her command—she spent as much time conversing with the common soldier and sitting with the wounded as she did planning her command. But he couldn't quite figure her out. His sharp hearing had caught a muttered _Talos keep you_ as she went by the tent that housed the injured soldiers. And yet by all outer appearances, she was a staunch legionnaire, upholding the Concordat and everything else that the Empire stood for. He found himself standing next to her in the line for the evening meal, an unappetizing, sloppy stew that contained a bit of venison, a bit of goat, and a bit of rabbit: whatever they had managed to kill that week that hadn't yet gone bad. "Legate," he greeted her.

"Companion," she said, a bit warily. She could sense that he didn't quite trust her, or at least, that he couldn't quite put her into a neat little box as he did with everyone else.

"You've been with the legion long?"

"My parents were legionnaires," she said, "And I've followed in their footsteps. But more importantly, I am a daughter of Skyrim and wish to see her made whole again."

For a moment, he was reminded of nothing so much as Sigrid, her story of her father forcing her to wait until her majority before she marched off to war. The more he thought about it, though… "Sounds like Stormcloak propaganda," he said wryly, as he accepted a ladled slop of stew in the bowl, though his nose wrinkled at the smell.

"I've been a daughter of Skyrim all my life," she said shortly. "I love this land and her people. So do _all_ Nords serving the Empire. Ulfric did too, once… he wasn't always such a self-serving ego-maniac. He fought alongside us in the War against the Dominion."

"So I've heard," Vilkas said. "But that didn't stop him from rebellion."

"It's not difficult for a man to convince himself that he's got the right of it. Not these days. Especially not when so much _power_ and wealth are involved. But they're deluding themselves," the legate said, picking up a piece of bread and letting it slip into her soup bowl. "If there's _any_ hope of a long term victory against the Dominion, it's in the Empire. The Stormcloaks are only inflaming the tension, weakening the Empire by distracting it from its ultimate aim."

"Have you and Sigrid been talking?" Vilkas said, just a bit sourly. "She says almost exactly the same thing."

"Because it's true, Companion," Rikke said. "And I would not lend my blade—lend my _life_—to a cause that was _not_ true."

But he could not merely let it lie, for he was never happy solely with simple answers. "What about the Concordat?"

She drew herself up, shoulders straight and calm eyes filled with some indefinable emotion. Another true believer, this one. "I'm a _soldier_, Companion. Not a politician. And my personal beliefs are not yours to question." And she took her foul soup and stalked off to her tent, no doubt to consider the logistics of Fort Greenwall, or possibly which Hold would be the next target once the Stormcloak presence was driven from the Rift. At the very least, their strange discussion had eased his concerns about her. Whatever the legion might be, whatever General Tullius might be, Rikke had mettle.

He tasted the soup, and spat it out again.

"They need to fire their damn cook," he muttered, and went to find a piece of bread or something impossible to ruin with innumerable salt piles and meat that managed to taste both scorched and undercooked all at the same time.

After he had finally managed to fill his stomach on bread and limp grilled leeks, Sigrid came over to help him set up the bed roll near the fire. There were no extra tents, a legionnaire informed them apologetically, and Vilkas shrugged. Though it had snowed earlier on the road, the night was fairly mild for the winter, and with the proximity of the flame and the fact that there was not even a question about whether they would share the space. And at least in the roll there was no way for her to steal all of the blankets in the middle of the night. She crawled in first and held the roll open for him as he followed. The battle that would loom on the morning horizon seemed far away and distant. Curled up against his chest, she was already asleep, that damnable ability to drift off at a moment's notice enacted already.

He watched her sleeping, for a moment, her face shadowed in the light of the flames, and stroked his hand over her newly-shorn hair, his own work, feeling the curve of her skull and the warm, throbbing pulse at the back of her neck. He could hear her heartbeat slowing, calm in sleep, and somehow, feeling the echo in his chest allowed him to drift off, too. It was a blessedly dreamless sleep on that hard, cold ground by the fire, and that was enough for him.

The battle for Fort Greenwall went much as the battle for Fort Dunstad had. They rushed the gates, destroyed the barricades, and charged up the battlements to pick off the archers first. He had the distinct impression that she was enjoying herself as they fought, which warmed his stomach in a strange, fond way: for he enjoyed it himself. She was the ideal shield-sibling for him: willing to fall back when he felt like charging ahead, just as easily taking the lead when it was appropriate to do so. In the time together he realized that he _understood_ her fighting style, and had probably done so since the first day of their brawl on the Jorrvaskr training grounds. Shield-siblings like that came along but once in a lifetime, and he'd managed to find two of them: one by blood, one by chance.

_For all your problems, you're a luckier man than you deserve to be._

Later, as he followed her up the ramp to Castle Dour, he found himself smirking just a little at her walk: he had never really noticed it before, but she walked like a man. Broad, wide strides with her shoulders thrown back and her pelvis angled forward. He wondered whether she had originally begun doing it on purpose, as a young woman eager to prove herself to a hard band of warriors, whether it had simply seeped into her frame since then, or whether it had always been her way. He followed her through the doors, stood at her side as General Tullius promoted her to Tribune, held her, later that night in the Winking Skeever, when she confessed something strange to him, when that confident swagger dropped for just a moment and she allowed him to see some of the doubt that lurked beneath the surface.

"I just feel… odd," she said, as they sat in the room, trying to ignore the bard who was aggressively playing "The Age of Aggression." All around them, men and women discussed the recent developments in the war, and especially the Dragonborn who had emerged as a sort of figurehead hero through it all, not realizing that the woman in a plain tunic and breeches sitting in their midst _was_ the Dragonborn.

"Why?"

"My father," she said, staring down into her pint of ale, "He never made it past tribune before they ruined his leg. I haven't quite outlived him yet, but I've… almost outstripped him. It doesn't feel _right_."

"It might not feel right, but that's the way the damned world is," he said. "There's not a pattern of justice to it." He didn't say: but _your father could not absorb a dragon's soul_, and he didn't say _your father never inspired the sort of movement that's almost won a damned war in under a month_.

For after General Tullius had ordered her to Winterhold, Vilkas knew that the end was coming, and coming quickly. Though news of other skirmishes, minor battles of the leftover soldiers in the hills, had reached them, the truth of the matter was that once Winterhold was conquered, all that remained was Eastmarch.

And Windhelm.

But he said none of that to her now. For all of his arrogance and his sharp tongue, he knew when to hold it. Though they spent most of the rest of the night in silence, it was not unpleasant. Her moment of guilt seemed to have faded, or at least sublimated into something contemplative.

Winterhold might wait for them in the morning, but for now, the rented inn room and the silent company were enough, enough for them both.


	30. Victories

**AN: **Sorry for the delay in this chapter, guys! I had a lot of trouble writing this one for some reason, and I kept re-doing the Vilkas and Sigrid conversation after Fort Kastav. I'm still not totally happy with it, but I guess you never really are happy with anything.

Also, I hope that you don't find this storyline too rushed and that the explanations offered in the chapter are good enough to satisfy—I think they are fairly logical, especially considering the in-game Civil War quests go by so quickly. I mean you could easily churn out 100,000 words about any of the other major questlines alone, and I am just more concerned with the MQ and Companions than the Civil War in the grand scheme of the story. Again, this is a little bit of picking and choosing what to represent, and hopefully it comes off as organic and logical rather than rushed.

In the meantime we are now a comfortable margin over 20,000 hits which is just totally unbelievable to me. Thank you all so much for sticking through and reading this insane labor of a word explosion. Also also, thank you to The Gramarye, who is the 100th reviewer, and that's pretty neat (I feel like I should give you some kind of a prize or something). As always, a reminder to leave a little note if you're enjoying the story. :)

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><p><em>All the morning they fought until midday shone,<br>(All the dusk as well and the dawning of day,)  
>When the battle was ended, the field flowed with blood…<em>

—The Poetic Edda, from _Atlamol En Grönlenzku, _translated by Henry Adams Bellows

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><p>On the road to Winterhold, she felt the weight of the amulet in her pocket, and wondered for the umpteenth time why she had kept it.<p>

Before leaving the Rift for Solitude, Vilkas had insisted on stopping in Riften for a few hours, having made a contact interested in hiring the Companions. A contact who preferred to remain as anonymous as possible. She thus found herself left at the gates, eyeing the denizens of Riften with suspicion and dislike, while he slipped away with a hurried apology. She wandered first through the main square of the city, chatting idly with the burly smith, Balimund, who informed her that the secret to his forge's success was fire salts. "Really?" she said, raising her eyebrow. Smiths often had many sorts of crazy superstitions, from Eorlund Gray-Mane, who claimed that the Skyforge was magical, to a man she'd known in Cyrodiil who swore on his wife's life that drops of his own blood mixed in with the cooling water forged the best blades (it did not), but fire salts were a new one. Balimund, however, was insistent that they were responsible for the truest steel, though his forge was dying for their lack. She did not promise to look for the salts for him: she was rarely in Riften, after all, and she was a busy woman, but she did wish him the best of luck.

That conversation had taken all of ten minutes.

Sigrid looked around again, strangely restless. She'd spent so many hours by herself, quite happy hours, that it was strange to suddenly find herself alone and regretting the absence. Discomfited, she glanced at the Bee and the Barb, and thought about grabbing a drink, but they had a long trek to Solitude ahead of them, and she did not want to interrupt whatever business he might have been conducting. She found herself wandering again, past Mistveil Keep, and up the steps of the Temple of Mara, steps she'd taken months ago when she'd first joined the Companions and Vilkas had sent her to rough up a Priest of Love. Although every instinct told her to flee, a result of guilty feelings and a general dislike of temples, she found herself inside of the dark wooden building, sitting on a pew and staring at the serene stone face of the Goddess of Love, the carved eyes closed in calm contemplation. It was early enough yet that the priest and priestess had not risen, and she decided to wait for Maramal to emerge before she left.

When he eventually came out of the room behind the altar, he caught sight of her and his swarthy faced paled. "_You_," he gasped, and started, as though prepared to flee back to the safety of his living quarters. She saw that his nose, which she had broken the last time they'd met, had healed with a little bump at the bridge, and another stab of guilt lanced through her.

"Wait—" she said, standing hastily. "Father, I didn't come to… I came to apologize, for what happened last we met. Truly." She couldn't explain further: he had offended someone who wanted him hurt but she was the one to fulfill the contract, she had accepted it, and she had carried it out.

He looked at her for a long moment in silence before he sighed again, and muttered, "Forgiveness is what Mara would wish of me. Lady grant me patience!" And then his voice raising, more confident, he added so that she could hear, "I forgive you, my daughter." And Shor's bones, he seemed as though he meant it sincerely. A thin smile twitched his mouth up, before it smoothed out again. "But know that when you make your living by your fists and your blade, there will be those you leave behind you; damages you cannot fix with an apology."

"I know, Father," she said sheepishly. Silent now, she watched as he went about tending the shrine, carefully shining the brilliant statue, rearranging the offering plates and clearing out the wilted flowers left over from a wedding the day before, the tension on his face faded away until he looked as serene as the face of Mara itself. As though he had forgotten her presence, or at least now that he had ascertained that she was not a threat, he had been able to relax. Still, the weight of the guilt pressed on her stomach and she suddenly stood again. "Father, do you accept donations? Money?"

Maramal looked up, surprised. "Well, yes, my daughter, we always accept donations, especially coin to go towards the upkeep of the Temple itself. And we also sell Amulets of Mara to those who either belong to the Restoration school, or who are interested in marriage."

"Here," Sigrid said, emptying her pockets of the small bag of gold she'd kept there, and shoving it towards him.

He did not turn it away, but his eyebrows went up, curiously, as his fingers closed around the pouch, weighing it in his palm. "This is more than enough to buy an amulet, my daughter. Do you wish for one, or is this merely a donation?"

"I…" she trailed off. "I suppose I'll take an amulet." Not that she would use it. She had no skill at healing, and she did not intend to marry any time soon. _Or ever._ But accepting something in exchange for the money made it seem more like a purchase and less like an apology, easing her pride.

But—oh gods, Maramal had misinterpreted her intentions and was already beginning to lecture her cheerfully on _marriage._

The priest took a deep breath as he fished a spare amulet from the pockets of his robes, handing it to her with the chain dangling over his hand. "Mara is the goddess of Love, and the Temple spreads her gifts by tending to the sick; the poor, and the lost. We also perform wedding ceremonies for all the loving couples in Skyrim… as you well know, life here is hard and short, so all you must do when the time is right is to wear the amulet around your neck to show you are available—"

"Yes, yes," Sigrid cut him off, snatching the amulet out of his hands, the filigreed weight of it warming against her skin. "I'm a Nord; I know how the marriage customs work here."

Maramal merely smiled at her, infuriatingly calm and friendly. But of course, he was a priest of Love; they were practically required to be so frustrating and obtuse. "Of course, my daughter. All you must do is return to the Temple and inform me when you're ready to have me arrange the ceremony for you."

In that moment she had the urge to bash his face in again, but suppressed it as she stalked towards the door, throwing one last snide remark over her shoulder. "Trust me, Father, that's never going to happen."

"Stranger things have occurred, my daughter," Maramal said with another one of those calm, knowing smiles. "Mara's light be upon you."

As she hurried from the temple, she caught sight of Vilkas' familiar, sturdy frame leaving the Bee and Barb. He looked from her, to the temple, and back to her again. Then he looked at her neck, and smirked when he saw that it was unadorned except for the scars and inked designs that crawled up her skin. "What were _you_ doing in there?" he drawled.

"I don't want to talk about it," she said roughly, and that was the end of that.

And now here she was on the road, the amulet burning a metaphorical hole in her pocket. She could not say why she hadn't just sold it to Madesi in the Riften square before they left the city, why she kept it secret and hidden, in a place where he could not see it. And where it had remained since they had left the Rift for Solitude, and now for Winterhold. Better not to think about it. Better to concentrate on the journey; on the next task at hand. Right now, it was reaching the camp, and charting Stormcloak movements as they went. Splitting up, they looped through the forest, picking off a scouting squad one by one, the hiss of her arrows and the swing of his blade accompanied by new stains on the white of the ground.

As usual, Rikke had beaten them to Winterhold, making the journey in between the time that Sigrid rode hard for Solitude and the time that she took to find the camp, in the mountains not far from Dawnstar. _And not far from the woods of her home_. Since she'd been back, however, the snowy slopes and the sagging balsam firs did not hold the approbation that they had done before her last trip. She knew now that she had nothing to fear from her memories. Something had settled inside of her, something wild and deadly that had driven her for years. The empty, loose ends had been tied up, not quite neatly, but in a knot tight enough to hold. The stillness in her heart when they moved swiftly through the trees surprised her still, however, and she was unsure whether its absence made her feel better or worse. _It's not as though I'm _forgetting him, she thought, _just that I've come to terms with his death. Finally. After all of these years._

Strangely, what gripped her stomach more than the knowledge that she was not far from her old home was the sight of Frostflow Lighthouse, rising in the distance just past the Imperial camp. The horror of the depths of the ice below it was still fresh, and she saw Vilkas' bleak eyes fixed on the spire, where the fire still burned. She touched his hand, lightly, and he blinked, the spell broken. She said nothing, but knew he was remembering the near-death experience, probably as clearly and sharply as she could remember her more memorable almost-deaths. "It's nothing," he said, shortly.

"All right," she said, but touched his hand again anyway, just so that he would remember she was _there._

They found Rikke in her tent, though instead of standing bent over the map, she sat slumped in a chair with her head resting on her arms on the table, eyes ringed by thick, dark smudges. She too had been working herself down to the bone for the war. For General Tullius. "Something to report?" she said coolly, looking up at the crunch of their footsteps on the snow, no trace of exhaustion in the words.

"Stormcloaks in the forest," Sigrid replied. "Or at least, they _were_ in the forest. But they've been moving freely through the region still."

"So I've heard. But they won't after we destroy their stronghold here," Rikke said grimly, nodding sharply at Vilkas too—evidently, he'd proven himself at Greenwall, or at the very least, this far north in what Tullius likely considered a backwater, his participation was not an issue. "Your next objective is Fort Kastav. The rebels are keeping some of our men prisoner there. I aim to turn that into an advantage. I've sent men to scout out the area. You are to meet them, find a way to slip in, free our men, and take over the fort. They won't be expecting an attack from the inside. This won't be easy, but that's why I'm sending you. Think you can handle it?"

"Yes, sir," Sigrid said, while groaning inwardly. Another stealth mission? When would she be allowed to fight on the open fields, or the streets of a city, in the light of day and with only her sword to protect her? All of this sneaking around did not behoove a warrior. "Though if you continue to require the talents of a sneakthief, perhaps you should hire a sneakthief."

"Tribune, I don't appreciate that tone," Rikke said, sharply, before relaxing again. She sighed. "As long as the rebels are willing to die fighting the Empire, we should oblige them." For the first time, she looked both her age and _tired_. It was easy to forget in the heat of battle when her commanding air and innate energy emerged, that the woman had known and fought by the side of Sigrid's father when Sigrid herself had been but a growing seed in her mother's stomach.

"Catch a wink of sleep, Legate," Sigrid said as they left.

"Sleep," the woman said with a dismissive wave of her hand, hauling herself out of the chair with a tired groan. "I'll sleep when Ulfric's surrendered."

"Do you think she meant it?" Sigrid muttered to Vilkas, as they left the legate's tent and set off for Kastav. She knew where it was, almost at the gates of Windhelm itself, an imposing stone fortress with a mountain at its back. It was a bold move by the Imperials, though there were other forts in Eastmarch further from the Hold capitol that she would have concentrated on taking first. But then, she was the Empire's sword, not its brains.

"I wouldn't be surprised," he replied wryly. "You were right. She is… dedicated."

They camped in the lea of Mount Anthor, if one could call a few hours' sleep grabbed without even removing their armor, sitting up against the stone walls, her head drooping onto her shoulder _camping. _Kastav was around the mountain, but after the hike from Solitude, and then from the Imperial camp, it had been a long few days and the rest was necessary. As she stood, her back popped painfully, uncomfortably. She resolved that once she got back to Jorrvaskr she would not leave her bed for an entire week, and that most of that week would be spent unconscious, and possibly drunk. But there was not time for that; the brief few hours' of fitful sleep would have to do. They continued on the long trek through the snowy north, and she grunted. "We should _really_ invest in some horses for Jorrvaskr, don't you think?" she asked him, and he laughed.

"Perhaps," he replied. "In the past, it wasn't necessary. If we'd have long distances to travel, Farkas and I would just make the change…"

"But you can't anymore."

"No. But I do miss it, especially in this interminable snow," Vilkas replied, looking out at the stretch of blinding white. "And I wish you'd been able to have that memory, despite all that comes with it."

"What memory?" she asked, curious.

"To run across the snow as a wolf," he explained, shading his eyes with his hand as he caught sight of the spires of Kastav in the distance, built up against the wall of rock and ice. "To feel the wind in your fur and the speed of your muscles, totally impervious to the cold, like nothing you can manage human, small and vulnerable. Whatever else the beast-blood brings with it, gods, that was good."

She picked her way over the treacherous bit of ground before them, all icy boulders leading up to a broad outcropping fringed by more boulders like a set of slaughterfish's teeth. "I don't remember my first transformation. I barely remember being a wolf at all."

"As I said, it's a damn shame," he said. "Some of my fondest memories aren't even the memories of a man."

"Some might say _that's_ the shame," she retorted.

"Whatever else some outsider might think," he said firmly, "I will never regret how I've spent my life. Would _you_?"

"No," she said, after a pause. "I could never."

"Hey there," Hadvar greeted them, as they crept up the ice towards the outcropping where the men had gathered. "Can you believe this place? So cold my breath turns to icicles."

"Aye, I can," she said shortly. "Grew up not too far from here."

"Oh," Hadvar said, momentarily thrown, but he brightened again, and continued. "General Tullius wants to make sure everything's locked down in the rest of the country before launching a serious campaign for Eastmarch. Anyway, I'm glad you're here. Even you, Companion, and don't give me that look, I know you don't think much of us." Vilkas' eyes narrowed, but to Sigrid's great relief, he said nothing. Hadvar turned his gaze back out to the fort, which bustled with men on the ramparts. It was defended by a high wall with a large wooden gate. "We're outnumbered again, more so than when we took that wagon. But if we work together, we can pull this off."

"What's the plan?" she asked.

"There's a grate outside the wall—looks like it used to be buried in snow, until the wind moved the drifts. I don't think they even know it's there. From the look of it, it leads straight into the prison," he said, indicating with one finger the approximate location of the grate, tucked next to the curve of the wall, below the stacked ice. "I need you to sneak in there, free our men, and kill anyone inside as you go. Once you've rescued them, head out to the courtyard. We'll stand guard here, and rush down to help when we hear the fighting. But I think it would be best to wait for nightfall. Maybe grab a few quick hours' sleep beforehand. You'll be harder to see in the dark."

"I'm on it," she said. "Vilkas… will you stay with the men while I go? I'm no damn good at stealth missions, and I don't want to risk you too."

"Yes," he said, though she could tell he did not like the idea at all.

She was grateful that he did not argue, merely accepted his role and hers, the easiest way for them both to make it through the coming battle. Together, they waited with the legionnaires for the sun to set. Everyone was on their guard; Vilkas had informed Hadvar of the Stormcloak patrols that they had seen in the woods, and their position, while hidden from the view of those on the battlements of the fort, was relatively open from the rear. Anyone coming in to Kastav from the wrong angle would see them, and the surprise would be ruined. But they had no choice but to remain. The soldiers took the watch in shifts, the others catching a quick moment of sleep as they could.

Sigrid took advantage of the time as well, though her own sleep was restless and troubled by nightmares. When she woke, she could only remember flames consuming her entire body and the pain of her muscles curling unwillingly beneath the blistering heat. Strange to go straight from that painful burn to the chill of the icy field around Kastav, but the shock to the system was just what she needed to throw her out of the throes of the dream.

She looked up, and saw him crouched above her, wide awake. "Sigrid?"

"Just a dream," she said hoarsely.

"You don't dream," he said. Not an accusation, merely a statement of fact. She did not. He was the one who suffered from nightmares; he was the one who thrashed around in the night.

"This time, I did," she muttered, and pulled herself to a crouch as well. "It was… very real."

"Well, you're awake now," he said shortly. "And a good thing too. Night's fallen. Time to go."

"Aye," she said, and took a handful of snow into her mouth, to clear the sour taste from it.

At the edge of the outcropping, Hadvar waited, with his men lined up in a crouch behind him, tense and ready for battle. "All right, Tribune, this is it. We'll await your signal. Talos preserve you."

She met Vilkas' eyes over the heads of the legionnaires, and he nodded, curt. She could barely see his eyes in the dark, but they had such a look of intense scrutiny that for a moment, her stomach flipped, oddly. She ignored it and nodded in return, and then set off across the ice fields, glad that her dragonbone armor was actually useful in camouflage, in the dark against the shimmering snow. She crouched nevertheless, trying to keep to the deeper shadows cast by the walls. She could hear the quiet noises from the fort: the night guard's footsteps on the walls, the rumbling from within as gates lifted and dropped, the crackling of the fires. She could hear her breath in her own ears, and it sounded loud and harsh in the silence. Somewhere behind her, the men stood arrayed behind the rocks, waiting for her signal. Waiting for her to succeed. If she failed, how long would it take for them to realize she hadn't made it?

She found the grate, which was exactly where Hadvar had said it would be, after she'd pulled herself up onto another rocky outcropping. First she opened the wooden slats covering it, and then found the grate beneath. As she grappled with the cold metal, chilled by the surrounding snow until it almost froze to the skin of her fingertips, she remembered the night in Corinthe when she'd done almost the same thing, prying the grate back and sneaking through the sewer into a skooma warehouse, to set the stock aflame before stumbling out again and hiding in the sewer, hallucinating from the fumes she'd inhaled. And she hadn't been afraid _then_. But then… now she had so much more to lose. Viciously, she yanked the grate from its rusty fastenings. It was too late now. What she had worried would happen had already come to pass. Give a woman a reason to live, and she'd fear dying. She'd falter. She'd hesitate.

She didn't hesitate as she crawled through the sewer grate, the disgusting splash of the murky water beneath her feet echoing loudly. The tunnel was dark and the ceiling low, so as she moved through it in a crouch, she kept one hand against the slick stones to guide her, breathing through her mouth. In the distance she could see the bobbing, dim light of a candle, and exhaled sharply in relief, emerging from the claustrophobic sewer and finding herself in a small hallway that ended in a wooden door. Creeping forward, Sigrid listened at the door, but heard only faint footsteps in the distance. She held her breath as she opened the door, moving forward at a quick crouch that must have looked ridiculously silly from above.

When she rounded the corner, she found herself in a small anteroom, patrolled by one soldier only, who turned on his heel and saw her. His eyes widened in surprise and she rushed forward, determined to kill him before he could alert the rest of the fort. The battle that followed was short and vicious, for he had not had the time to even draw his blade before she was on him, dagger in her hand, knocking him down. He threw wild punches at her, kicking wildly with his feet, but she shrugged off the blows. One punch in the face stilled him, and the edge of the blade cutting into the artery that would end everything in a few short minutes. He gurgled and collapsed into boneless death, and she picked herself up from the floor, and went through another door into a hall that curved around and led down some stairs, into the prison below.

Huge stone pillars supported the ceiling, and she was glad for them, for they provided some cover. When the guards turned towards the wall, she made a break for it, rushing for the cover the stone round provided. One of the prisoners saw her though, and hissed, "Hey! Let me out! Hey! Over here!"

"Shut _up_," she whispered. "Unless you want to get us all killed. Quiet, soldier."

He quieted, but she could see from the fierce gleam in his eyes that he wanted to be out of the cage and _fighting_, despite his filthy rags and emaciated limbs. None of the prisoners wore shoes, most likely to make it more difficult to escape. She approached the cage, and tested the lock. She was no good with lockpicks, so she'd have to get the key off of one of the jailers.

Her momentary dilemma was solved when one of them rounded the corner, saw her, and gasped. "You're not supposed to be in here!" and lunged for her with his sword drawn. The prisoners stood pressed against the bars of their cages, watching with impassive, intent eyes. The Stormcloak lunged at her, feinting at her side. She didn't fall for it but circled him, quick furious slashes first at his stomach, then his face, as he stumbled backwards to avoid her attack. Though off balance he did not give up, went for her with renewed vigor until she kicked his legs out from under him, stomped her booted foot down on his head when he hit the ground, and then stabbed him in the stomach. A suppressed cheer went up from the men in the cages, and she wondered whether he had mistreated them as she went through his pockets, finding a smashed sweetroll in the left, and a key and some gold in the right. Her fingers closed around the metal and she stood.

"All right, men," she told the prisoners. "_No one is to fight._ You're unarmed and weak and just stay the hell behind me. _Got it_?"

She should have known she was in for trouble when none of the freed legionnaires answered her.

* * *

><p>If he had thought that waiting for her when she went traveling was frustrating, Vilkas found that waiting for her only a few hundred feet away was even worse. Especially after having seen her face after the strange nightmare, the disconcertingly out-of-character fear that had lurked beneath her eyes. He ignored the soldiers arrayed behind him, as far forward as Hadvar allowed them to go, ears straining for any sound of fighting. Any indication that she had been discovered. Hadvar sat next to him, a slightly rueful grin on his face. "And that's why I try not to fight with my close friends," he said.<p>

"I _only_ fight with my close friends," Vilkas said with a grunt. Despite Sigrid's evident fondness for the man who had helped her escape from the depths of Helgen, he remained unimpressed by the legionnaire's hesitance and his sad eyes. When it came down to it, he doubted that Hadvar had the kind of viciousness a man needed to survive. At the growl, however, the legionnaire merely raised his eyebrows and did not respond, and went back to watching the horizon with him.

The quiet stretched out between them like a breath held deep in the lungs.

Suddenly, the fort exploded in noise. First the clash of steel, carrying on the echoing silence of the valley, and then screams, and then the blowing of the horns: two sharp blasts for enemies within the walls. "Go!" Hadvar yelled, lifting his sword as a signal. The legionnaires spread out as they pelted down the hill, fanning out in a line to charge the gates, which had fallen open. _Sigrid. Good girl_, he thought, as he ran with them.

They found a grim scene in the courtyard, though instantly shifting from attack to fight did not give him time to examine it. Hadvar had not been exaggerating when he had said they would be outnumbered by many more men than at the caravan. He could see ragged dark shapes on the ground; some of the prisoners had already been slain, dressed only in rags. The others were still fighting, barefoot in the snow, with more ferocity than sense. And all around swarmed men and women in blue armor, the sounds of battle joined. Vilkas could not allow himself to lose his attention to the fight or the bloodlust: right now, his one objective was to find Sigrid amidst the chaos.

Both moons were in their new phase and the auroras remained silent and dark, so little lit the courtyard besides the torches, guttering and falling, Even in the dark he could find her—and he didn't need his werewolf senses to hear her cursing a blue streak at the Stormcloaks who had surrounded her in the corner of the courtyard. "Can't fight me one on one, you cowardly _pigfuckers_?" she was screaming at them as she lashed out with shield and sword, and he could hear the crunch of bone and the echo of metal against metal. "You'd rather fight bloody _unarmed prisoners_, would you? I should fucking burn you _alive_." He almost stopped short. Almost. Though she usually taunted the men she fought, it was with an almost surreal sense of humor. Not this time. This time, an unfamiliar edge of rage trembled in her voice, and then he reeled back as the flames burst from her mouth and the heat singed his skin. Thin screams from the Stormcloaks, as their own skin and hair caught alight, burning merrily in the darkness as one after another, the men threw themselves into the snow in a desperate effort to douse the flames.

"Sigrid!"

She looked at him, and for a brief second the intensity of her rage and the golden gleam of her eyes reminded him of the dragons they had fought together, and the blood chilled in his veins. For that brief moment she looked almost inhuman, with the pile of burning corpses smoldering at her feet, sword raised and dripping with blood. For that moment, he could imagine the _Dovahkiin_ as something otherworldly and terrible, the force of the dragon's soul grabbing hold of her. And then something quieted, something stilled. Her eyes were Sigrid's own gray once more, and the furious curl of her lip had smoothed. "Took you long enough to get here," she said, panting, and casually struck the sword out sideways, killing the man who had lunged at her side.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded, though he could not wait for her answer, for he whirled to face one of the Stormcloaks, tenacious if unsuccessful. The clash of the blades vibrated up his arms but he ignored the brief moment of discomfort, lashing out with his foot and tripping the Stormcloak; as the man stumbled, he pivoted, his arms twisting to whip the sword around, the blade snapping the man's face open with a crunch of bone and a crash of his body to the ice. All around them the Imperial soldiers mopped up the last of the resistance, the courtyard echoing with battle cries and the chime of steel against steel. An arrow hissed down from the ramparts, hitting the shoulder of his armor, a punch of impact, though it did not penetrate. The archer screamed as an Imperial sword took him down, his body toppling from the ramparts.

"What do you mean, what the hell was that?" she said, and looked away, the stench of guilt rising from her.

"That wasn't _you_," he said, as around them, the fight had finished; only the screams of the wounded remaining.

"We'll talk about this later," she said, glancing up as Hadvar approached them across the courtyard. One of his men stooped to slit the throat of a gut-wounded Stormcloak soldier, quickly putting the woman out of her misery. Sigrid's eyes narrowed as she watched, her bloody sword still in hand, her chest heaving. Vilkas could smell the ash on her breath, and again felt that faint chill of foreboding.

Hadvar came to a halt in front of them, and did not seem to notice anything amiss. He thumped his fist on his chest in salute, and nodded sharply at Sigrid. "Nice work, tribune," the legionnaire said. "And you, Companion. I didn't think it would go that easy, considering the number of men this fort held. Right. You go report our success; I'll set up a garrison here to clean up the mess," Hadvar said, and then frowned. "Shame none of the prisoners made it."

"_Success_? Yes, it is a damn shame," Sigrid said shortly. "It was a damn shame that they fought, still, even without weapons or shoes and only one armed soldier to guard them. It was a shame that the men going into the depths of Korvanjund to face a draugr overlord didn't know what they were getting into." And she turned away from him and stalked off towards the gates of Kastav, leaving Vilkas behind to make his excuses to a puzzled Hadvar, and then follow after her into the dark.

That night, they kept traveling through their exhaustion, for a demon seemed to drive her on. He didn't say anything at first, for he knew that in the sort of black mood that had descended upon her shoulders, she would not want to talk, however uncharacteristic it was for her in the first place. Eventually, after several hours of silence, as they took a short cut across a shallow stream that had iced over in the chill, he was not about to allow her to evade it any longer. "What the hell happened back there, Sigrid?"

A shudder passed through her shoulders, and he could see that her eyes, shadowed as they were by the hedge of her helm and the dark of the night. "I don't know," she admitted. They continued walking, Sigrid jumping over a fallen tree. She looked over her shoulder at him as she continued walking, face troubled, mouth pressed into a nervous thin line. "I was just so… furious at everything. At the way they handled that rescue. That's not the Legion my father fought for. _That_ army would never have risked the lives of unarmed prisoners just to garrison a fort. _That _army would never have sent me in alone, so that I couldn't protect myself and the men."

"You came through alive," Vilkas said, though he knew that her rage was not for herself, but for the dead men she had tried and failed to save.

"They didn't."

"No. You did what you could."

"I did, but _they_ didn't," Sigrid said. "That's what infuriated me. I just… wanted to destroy _everything_. The Stormcloaks. Hadvar and his stupid plan. I wanted everything to burn."

"And you did it."

"This is what I was afraid of, Vilkas," she said, and stopped in the snow, her shoulders slumped below the bone armor. "This is what I dreamed before Kastav. The flames, consuming everything, including _me_." And when she started walking again, her steps were a heavy trudge through the snow, exhausted but not showing it.

He followed gamely after her—it was different for him; he rarely tired, and he had been fighting for a shorter period of time. "That's a little what it's like with the beast-blood. You're never sure what's you and what's the wolf. It takes years of them, of sorting through your thoughts to figure it out, if you even care to do it. It might be worth trying the breathing exercises I showed you after your first transformation. To concentrate on your own thoughts, your own breath, to force down the rage."

"Does it work?" she asked, just slightly disparaging.

"Not always," he admitted. "Rarely. But at least you can feel like you're doing something. And isn't that what's the important thing in the end? That you've tried to overcome it?" He was surprised, and not a bit pleased, when she laughed, though it was a short sharp bark.

"You and Paarthurnax," she said. "You damn men and your meditation."

"I don't think I'm bloody flattered to be compared to a dragon," he drawled, and she laughed again.

"I _am_ damn glad you're here, you know."

"I know," he said, and he knew it deep in his bones.

Later that night, when they finally stopped to camp on the first dry ground they could find somewhere outside Morthal, she shivered against him until she fell asleep, not with cold, but with a wordless, unacknowledged fear. He remained awake, silently furious that yet again he faced an enemy he could not fight. If he could not even sort out the battle against the darkness in himself, how could he be anything but helpless in the face of her own shadows?

When she woke, she seemed to have recovered from the bleak mood that had caught them both in its grip the night before. The promise of a new day, even in the misty Hjaalmarch swamps, could do that to a person. Though the sun was hidden behind the drifting, foggy clouds, weak beams of light shone through, illuminating the patch of deathbells that ringed their campsite and the river flowing just beyond. Spring might have been around the corner but the mornings were still chilly, with a hint of frost on the fungal pods and grass tips. As they walked, Sigrid stared at the spires of Solitude on the mountain on the horizon, getting closer as they approached. "I shouldn't have been surprised," she said, breaking the silence.

"No," he replied. "But you weren't wrong to hope for better, either."

"The largest group of mercenaries I've fought for was fifty men strong," she said. "The headman was a selfish, cruel bastard, and even he would never have taken a fort in such a manner. Wouldn't be worth it to lose good fighters so casually."

"The Empire is large," he said. "It's easy to justify those kinds of losses, when you're working on a grand scale. When you're working in causes and not coin. Dealing in wars, not practicalities."

She glanced at him sideways, eyes narrowed. "Was that a rebuke?"

"No. Just facts. It's not like fighting for the Companions. Both sides are making decisions I'd never make in an era."

"What's Ulfric done wrong?" she asked, with a grin.

"It's madness to even mount a campaign like this with the amount of men he has available. Let alone a concentrated campaign. You saw how many soldiers he had at Whiterun—nowhere near enough to take a well-defended city, but he threw them at the walls anyway. Each Hold we've taken so far has one major fort, two at the most, defended by skeleton crews because he's bled away his forces by sending them out into the country to battle the Imperials in the hills," he said, becoming more animated as he talked. Though the Companions had never had the kind of numbers to fight wars on this scale, Kodlak had spent many hours discussing strategy and logistics with a curious child who had read about great conflicts in depth for years, and he found that he still enjoyed the speculation. "The minute he lost Whiterun, he should have taken the time to regroup instead of attempting to continue as though nothing had changed. Redistributed his men and rethought the way he was fighting the war."

"But to do so would be to cede the Holds he'd won already," Sigrid replied, playing devil's advocate.

"Yes, but he's lost them anyway," Vilkas said, shrugging, as he warmed to the conversation. "He's lost them, and now the Imperials are on his doorstep, and he's already lost more men than he can afford."

"How would you have done it?"

"I don't know if I ever would have tried," Vilkas admitted. "I don't know if it's a war he ever could have won. And you're right—even if he does win, with the Aldmeri Dominion on his doorstep, he's going to have to fight them off severely weakened. Even a victory would end up being a loss later on down the line."

"I think he's counting on the countryside rising up to support him, to replace the men he's lost."

Vilkas grunted, disparagingly. "Ulfric's out of touch with the countryside. Most of the farmers and millworkers aren't exactly of as much use as a trained soldier, if they even had the stomach for it. Most of them can't even deal with wolves in the village, let alone the Thalmor."

"You have to wonder what the bloody man was thinking," Sigrid muttered.

"Ideals again," Vilkas said. "Combined with a thirst for power. A dangerous combination that can fool a man into believing that he can do the impossible. He did it once at Markarth by such bloody methods, and the use of the _thu'um, _but I don't think he realized that conquering a country demands much more sweat and sacrifice than one city, even one as defensible as Markarth. And now look. The war almost lost, in the matter of a few weeks."

"You've given this a lot of thought," Sigrid said, with a small smile tilting her mouth up. She too was enjoying the conversation, he could tell—and he knew why. They dealt so often with the harsh realities of battle, the blood and the bile and the bodies, that to discuss it in such a removed, almost academic manner for a change was almost a relief. It certainly made the journey more tolerable: this time, they could not find a boat to cross the river, and neither wanted to plunge into the cold water. This meant a longer walk up to the Dragonbridge, and from there down to Solitude.

Strangely, however, as they walked from the marshes and onto more solid ground, he found that he did not mind. "It's a remnant of childhood," Vilkas said told her. "Kodlak used to play a game with me, if I was well-behaved and kept up with my studies and exercises. He'd set up small armies on his map and use them to plan campaigns."

"Really?" Sigrid said, and laughed, the sound curiously echoing amongst the birdsong and the lapping water of the river. "What a strange game for a child."

"Maybe not for a Jorrvaskr child," Vilkas replied. "He based the exercises on battles from the Great War, and if I studied what actually happened, he would change the conditions so I couldn't figure it out so easily. Not that it would be knowledge I'd ever need, not with the Companions as… diminished as they were, but thinking about how _I'd_ fight a battle of a war, and being able to react to quick changes, was a skill that's served me well over the years."

"It sounds like a happy childhood."

A happy childhood? A childhood plagued by nightmares, by frustration, by the desire for vengeance. A childhood where his father-figures went out to fight and he would lay with his eyes open in the dark, fearing that if he went to sleep, if he did not stay awake to wish them back safe and alive, that they would die. But underneath all of that… "Considering the circumstances," he said, "I suppose it was. It wasn't easy, but it was… Kodlak's a good man. Jergen was a good man."

"Did Farkas ever play the war game with you?"

"Farkas?" Vilkas said, and laughed. "Gods, no. He was interested in exactly three things: learning to fight, eating as many of Tilma's turnovers as he could steal from the kitchens, and chasing anything in a skirt around the streets of the city. Books and strategy never held much appeal for him."

"Just for you," she said, and grinned, her scarred face lit with humor and a strange, casual fondness that had grown between them these last few weeks. "I almost wish I could have seen you then."

"I don't," he said, with a snort. "I was always small for my age, at least until I hit my growth spurt, and I was _angry_. I'd fight anyone, or anything, at the slightest provocation, and I never yielded even when I should have."

"You would have hated me, then," Sigrid said, still grinning. "I was always very tall for my age, and I didn't know when to back down or back _off_, because I only grew up around my da. I couldn't read people at all and I had no social niceties."

"You still don't. But no," he added easily, without thinking. "I think we met at exactly the right time."

She looked at him sharply, suddenly, but did not say anything in response to that strange statement. He could feel the words trembling at the base of her throat, just waiting to emerge, but she kept them quiet.

And they walked the rest of the way to Solitude in silence.

As they walked up the ramp of Castle Dour, Vilkas muttered out of the corner of his mouth, "Don't do anything stupid."

"Like I would," she muttered back.

"The last time you said that…"

"I know, I know. A bandit sliced my face open. But I don't think the general will be so quick with a blade."

"That's not a chance we can afford to take."

Inside the castle, the little room with its map spread on the table was still there, the general still crouched over it, his stocky frame hunched forward as he examined the maps. When he looked up and saw the Companions, Tullius nodded to them, but his attention was only on Sigrid. "Now that we have Winterhold, I can garrison troops there until we're ready to march on Windhelm." He paused, and looked down at the map again, a man clearly unused to doling out praise, however genuine. "I have come to rely heavily on you," he said, after a pause, the words emerging stiff and awkward. "It is only fitting you join the ranks of the upper echelon. Therefore, I am elevating you to Legate. On behalf of myself and the Empire, I offer you this gift. Congratulations." He began to extend another sword to her, but Sigrid lifted her hand.

"Keep your blade," she said shortly. "I haven't earned this one."

He raised his eyebrows, but perhaps he had heard of the disastrous rescue at Kastav. "As you will," he said, all curt business now. "Regardless. You have little time to… glory in your accomplishments. We're gathering our final assault on Windhelm. Report to our camp in Eastmarch, and Rikke will have further orders for you there."

"Yes, sir."

In the end, the assignment for Eastmarch proved to be yet another fort to capture. Vilkas refused to leave her side during the fight, keeping a sharp eye on her in case he felt the rage growing in her. In case the flames threatened to burst from her lips, claiming another little bit of her humanity in the pyre. He might be so far gone that he could not tell the wolf from the man, but perhaps if he could do his part to keep her fighting as Sigrid and not solely as the _Dovahkiin_, then maybe at the end of it all, her soul would remain intact, hale and hearty as it had been when she first stalked over the threshold of Jorrvaskr. They moved in rote mechanics now, and strangely, he did not mind watching her back when previously he might have lunged ahead. It kept them both in check, he found, much to his relief. The fury that had consumed him at the Hall of the Vigilant was held at bay as he was held at bay. As he caught the blow of a warhammer on his greatsword, he found himself thinking, _perhaps we might yet save each other._

At the end of the battle, she pulled the helmet from her head, her face brilliantly red and covered in sweat and blood, but with a look of intense relief on her face. They had fought, but they had fought well and honorably, with muscle and steel rather than flames, rather than the call of the blood singing in his ears. She came towards him, a stride steady and confident as a general's, and took his chin in her free hand, and kissed him there on the field of battle, in front of the crowd of whistling, hooting legionnaires. She pulled back, and said only, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

They returned to Rikke, still filthy from the battle, but he found that there was to be no rest in the camp.

The Legate met them at the flap of her tent with a fierce battle-light in her eyes, a broad hunter's grin on her lips. "We're taking the city tomorrow before dawn," she told them. "Meet the soldiers gathering for the attack. Move it!"

* * *

><p>The road to Windhelm was not an easy one. As though the Stormcloaks knew that the rest of the country had been lost, any man who'd been in Winterhold and Eastmarch proper seemed to be flooding the road to the capitol. She found herself fighting in fierce skirmishes by the sides of the road, marching with a detachment of ten soldiers from the Eastmarch camp, and Vilkas. She had never thought she would find herself in such a position: a legate, leading men into battle. She had always been the one taking the orders and hoping to live through the night. And now she found herself responsible for a group of soldiers who ranged in age from barely sixteen winters (the lad had lied about his age to join) to a grizzled sixty, all of whom looked at her with a combination of suspicion and awe. Once they saw, however, that she and Vilkas led the way into the fight, and that she spat and cursed just as intensely as any of them, they accepted her as one of them.<p>

That did not make the journey easier.

"I'm starting to think you were right, my friend. Ulfric probably should have thrown all of these men at Whiterun in the first damn place," Sigrid said, as she pulled her blade from the pulped guts of a fallen Stormcloak. Although the more she fought them, the more she wasn't sure if it would have helped. Over her years roaming Tamriel, she had found that most mercenary companies were vicious and recklessly brave, but not well-disciplined. The rare company that combined both qualities was worth staying with, but she had found few of them since the betrayal of Saemund, her first captain. The Stormcloaks reminded her of most of the men she'd fought with since: more bravery than sense, more ferocity than strategy, rushing in without a thought to strategy or tactics. At the very least, the men she led to Windhelm followed orders, acted in concert, and knew better than to rush about willy-nilly. There was something to be said for the Empire's training, even if she realized that it viewed these disciplined legionnaires as entirely expendable.

"Aye," he replied, and she found that even his _I told you so_ smirk did not annoy her so much as it would have a few weeks ago. Having him there, watching her back and not solely in the physical sense, was a relief that was almost indescribable. The fear that had gripped her after losing control at Kastav had not abated, but knowing that Vilkas was there to pull her back if something like… that happened again was comforting.

In the evening, they tried the breathing exercises again, seated by the edge of the White River. She did her best to ignore the curious stares of the soldiers as they set up a rough camp by a shack by the riverside, after they'd killed the bears lurking within. Sigrid sat and closed her eyes, though she could hear the whispering behind her. She was their legate for the moment, yes, but they also knew her as the Dragonborn, and there was a mixture of awe and disdain and a weird, prideful affection as they muttered questions back and forth. ("What's she doing?" "Meditating on the _thu'um_, you blockhead." "The hell is a _thu'um_?" an orc demanded, only to be told, "Where you been the last few months, bollocksbrain? That's how the _High King_ died so you sure's Oblivion better shut up and make sure _she_ don't hear you.")

"Ignore them," Vilkas said, low under his breath. "Concentrate on your breath. Count the motions of your lungs, in and out. Imagine the blood pumping from your heart and through your body."

She closed her eyes, but focused, instead, on his voice. The rough rasp of it low and soothing, the murmured words repeated over and over again. She thought of the dragon words and the seductive power of them, the promise of wishes granted, of her enemies crushed before her. _That's not what I want_. She focused on her breath, on drowning out all of the noise of the world around her, on the qualities that made her Sigrid, rather than the Dovahkiin: breath and heart, the churning in her gut of hunger and uncertainty. The dragon's soul did not doubt—but _Sigrid _did. And for the first time in her life, she took those doubts and nurtured them, rather than shoving them away into the dark recesses of her mind, where they could not hold her back. It was terrifying, to embrace this new vulnerability in so many ways, ways that seemed to come faster and faster upon her like a blizzard's snowflakes, until she could not see through the white haze of them.

Until she opened her eyes, and met his gaze across the campfire, and the world snapped back into focus.

"I'm going to sleep," she said roughly, looking away first. "Join me if you want." And he did.

In the end, however, they did not sleep long; they had camped close enough to Windhelm that a quick few hours' march would bring them to the gates to meet up with the rest of the General's men before the sun rose in the morning. She could see the Legion spread out before the city, more men gathered than she had seen even at Whiterun, and she felt both a strange excitement and a sense of unease. The orderly lines of legionnaires spread out before the gates, rows of red and silver like bloody shark's teeth. The men still and waiting, like toy soldiers rather than something real, like a child's playthings lined up to be thrown against the stone of Windhelm's walls. Her own men joined their comrades easily, mingling into the ranks seamlessly. There was no chatter, however, none of the nervous energy she usually felt before a battle. They were all waiting for their orders, and it was eerily quiet in the night, before the hint of sun on the horizon. Though Ulfric must have known what waited beyond his gates, it seemed as though he was waiting for them to make the first move. Perhaps his forces were even more demoralized than Vilkas had guessed.

The man stood at her side, grim-faced and helmed for battle, and his eyes narrowed slightly as General Tullius took the stairs to address the troops. For all Vilkas had accompanied her on this journey without complaint, she knew that he would never trust the Imperials fully.

The General surveyed the men, calmly, and then took a deep breath.

"All right! It's time to deliver the final blow to the Stormcloak rebellion. You have all fought bravely and scarified much to get to this point," Tullius said. Even now, his voice lacked the passion that she would have expected of a military leader, once again driving home the fact that though he led them in battle into the city of Windhelm, for Tullius, this was a matter of justice more than of belief or of idealism. Ulfric had rebelled, and would be punished. But it was almost an academic exercise for him. He moved out of the way so that the men in the front could swing a battering ram at the city gates, the thud of metal on wood punctuating his speech. "Ulfric thinks he can hide behind the walls of his castle, but we will fight our way in and _drag _him out through the rubble to face justice. Because this is the end for them, the Stormcloaks will fight like cornered rats. They will be fierce and crafty. But they are no match for legionnaires! You are the best and brightest warriors in Tamriel, professional soldiers, fearless and devastating!" The speech, punctuated by the cheers of the men before him, was strangely measured. Even now, the General radiated calm, and Sigrid wondered what it would take to get to that point one day, that almost cold confidence. Whether she would be able to fight without passion, without fury. "The Emperor will be paying close attention to what happens here today. Men who distinguish themselves will be rewarded! Ready now, everyone with me! For the Empire! For the Legion!"

As he talked, all that Sigrid could see were the flames of the torches some of the men held, and as she stared at them, the brief flash of a vision in front of her eyes: flames consuming her and the roar of Alduin echoing all around her. She shook it off like a fly, but she knew that once she crossed the gates and set foot in Windhelm again, she was one step closer to trapping a dragon in the Jarl's palace. One step closer to her doom.

_Doom-driven_, she thought sardonically as she drew her sword, her shield already slung casually over her arm. _Paarthurnax had no bloody idea._

"Fight your way to the Palace!" Rikke yelled as the battering ram smashed the gates open, and the soldiers poured through, "Force Ulfric to surrender!"

The unearthly silence inside of Windhelm proved to be just that—unearthly, a ruse. As soon as the gates came down, she saw that the courtyard was full of Stormcloaks, and that they must have had orders to remain as silent as possible to throw the invaders off their guard. Perhaps Ulfric really thought the gates would have held. The city had been transformed overnight: huge wooden barricades blocked the way to the Palace of the Kings, and though some of the legionnaires had already begun firing flaming arrows into the wood, it would be a long time before they collapsed.

"Don't stop to fight here," Vilkas said in a low voice, "We'll force our way into the palace."

"If we can get around these damn barricades."

"They can't be this strong over the entire city," he replied, raising his voice over the din as the fighting joined in earnest, red and blue mixing into a roiling boil of men, of clashing swords in the dark.

"Through the Stone Quarter!"

The barricade there was small, easy to kick. And then the arrows came, in an almost solid rain of metal and wood and hissing feathers through the air, catching the Imperials off guard. Behind her, a man gurgled and fell, a shaft protruding from his throat, the dark blood bubbling up and pooling on the cool stone. She threw up her shield to cover her head and Vilkas', but one of them caught him in the arm, the barbed head emerging from the other side of his skin. He hissed in pain and jerked his arm away, the greatsword held only in one hand, and she pushed him down into a corner. "No!" she screamed, over the noise as he tried to stand. "No, stay down. If I don't take that out you could fucking bleed to death."

"This isn't the time to worry about that," he said, between gritted teeth, trying to bat her hands away. "Keep going. We need to find Ulfric."

"Not without you, I'm not. Hold _still_. I have a healing potion in my pack. If you _need _to do something, get that ready." And without further ado, she set down her shield, hoping that the wall would provide enough protection from another rain of arrows, that the other legionnaires would prevent a Stormcloak from sneaking up on her while she dealt with him. Quickly, with practiced hands, she gripped the protruding shaft of the arrow in one fist and with the other, snapped off the fletching. She could see him grit his teeth as it jostled the projectile in his arm, and muttered a quick apology. And in one quick motion, she took the protruding edge of the arrow, still with the barbed arrowhead attached, and yanked it from his arm. "_Gods damn it_," he growled, but did not flinch. With unearthly calm, he ignored the spurt of blood from the wound, hot on her hands. If they had not had the healing potion, he probably would have bled out in minutes, but instead he drank it down in three quick gulps, his hands surprisingly steady.

She guarded him as he waited for it to take effect, lunging to her feet to meet a woman with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, head on. "You _bitch_!" the Stormcloak howled, as Sigrid slammed her helmeted head into her face, with a satisfying crunch of bone. The woman's hands flew up to the wound and Sigrid took advantage of the momentary distraction, slicing through the padded cloth armor and spilling her intestines on the stone, where they hissed, warm against the chill. She fought all of them off with the same vicious, desperate intensity, though thinking of him healing behind her kept the dragon's fury in check. She thought of his skin and flesh knitting together, and that she could not afford to lose control, to force him to his feet before he was able to stand.

"Sigrid!"

She looked over her shoulder, quickly, and saw that he had stood, the new pink skin smeared still with blood. "Ready, shield-brother?"

"Ready," he said, grimly, and took the lead as they moved through to the next section of the city. The legionnaires behind them had taken down the barrier and the archers behind it, and a pile of corpses with their limbs bent at unnatural angles lay there. The Stone Quarter was burning, all of the vendors' stalls on fire in the dark. But there was no time to examine them: working on instinct, Vilkas led her on a winding path through the streets of the first city, down the narrow streets where they had hunted the Butcher of Windhelm. He did not falter as they passed Hjerim.

The battle continued for what seemed like hours. She lost track of what was going on behind her: she knew that there were still many Stormcloaks they had not taken down behind them. The main concern now was to get to the Palace. The legionnaires would, hopefully, take care of the rest. She tamped down the treacherous thought _it would be much easier to burn your way through. _This day, though, she would not use the force of the _thu'um_, however tempting. If Ulfric had seized power using it, she would not defeat him using the same methods. She would do it with good, honest steel. She found herself grinning as Vilkas kicked a man down to his knees and drove his sword down through the soldier's skull: she had missed this, a plain, honest fight without magic, without Shouting, without dragons. And she threw herself into it gladly, a whirling dervish of blade and shield, of foot and fist. Eventually, they found themselves at the gates of the Palace, with Rikke and Tullius striding up the now-freed courtyard behind them.

The Palace was lightly guarded, but the fierce battle in the streets had drawn away the defenses. Tullius kicked the doors in, and the three Nords followed after him, cautiously.

"Secure the door," he ordered.

"Already done, sir," Rikke replied.

Sigrid looked down the long hall, so strangely empty and quiet. Ulfric stood at his throne, proud and defiant to the last, when all of his men except Galmar had deserted him. The table was set and abandoned as though the servants had been surprised in the middle of preparing the castle's breakfast, and Jorlief the steward cowered under it, whining under his breath, _oh gods please don't kill me please don't kill me._

"Ulfric Stormcloak!" Tullius said, striding forward down the long hall, his sword drawn. "You are guilty of insurrection, the murder of Imperial citizens, the assassination of High King Torygg, and treason against the Empire. It's _over_."

Ulfric said nothing, merely watched Tullius with scornful eyes. The eyes of a cornered lion, wounded, but unwilling to cower. Galmar Stone-Fist, though, would not remain silent.

"Not while I'm still breathing, it's not!" he growled, as he stalked forward with his battle-axe in hand. The fight that followed was short and brutal, and Sigrid looked away. How it must have galled Galmar to be taken down by an Imperial and a "traitor" Nord! Rikke and Tullius went at him like dogs at a bear-baiting, a flurry of steel against steel. The man fought well, and bravely, his hugely muscled arms almost comical as he swung the axe. But he was no match for two such determined fighters: Tullius sliced one hamstring and then the other, and the man fell to his knees, still fighting and screaming curses at them. "You won't defeat me!" And then, in one fell swoop of her blade, Rikke slit his throat. He fought even as he bled out, weakly lashing out with the axe until he could not lift it, and it clattered from his nerveless fingers.

And now Ulfric was fighting, though strangely, he did not use the thu'um to protect himself, only steel. He lunged at them, sword drawn. But his heart was not in it: not with the death of Galmar. Not with the fall of his city. Still, he threw himself at Vilkas, perhaps picking up on the fact that the man had been injured recently. Though Sigrid almost threw herself in front of them, it proved unnecessary. Vilkas was fighting back now, easily, stepping between her and Ulfric, keeping himself in front of her no matter which way Ulfric turned—and she realized in that moment that Vilkas feared that Ulfric might Shout at her, as he had Torygg, and she could not decide whether she was more furious or touched.  
>But the fight did not last long. He went down easily, after a furious flurry of parries. Of Vilkas' foot smashing into his knee and a whirling elbow into his face. Almost too easily, Vilkas' sword at his throat.<p>

"Well, Ulfric," said General Tullius. "You can't escape from me this time. Any last requests before I send you to wherever you people go when you die?"

"Sovngarde, sir," Rikke said, under her breath.

Ulfric was still staring at them, not quite in disbelief, but as though he couldn't quite bring himself to accept that this was how it might end. The light brown eyes raked over each one of them in their turn, arrogant to the last.

"Right," the General said. "Well?"

"Let the Dragonborn be the one to do it," Ulfric said in his deep, still-confident voice as he stalked down from his throne, stepping over the corpse of Stone-Fist as he did. "It'll make for a better song."

"Song or not, I just want it done," said General Tullius, as he looked at Sigrid.

"I'll do it," she said, and spat on the ground. "Someone should take some bloody responsibility for this mess."

"Here. Use my sword. I made sure to sharpen it for the occasion," General Tullius said, and handed Sigrid his sword. She almost couldn't take it from him, that last comment reminding her of the day she had faced the headsman's axe at Helgen. He had not performed that execution himself, either, though no one had suggested that the executioner taking _her_ head off would make for a better song.

"What are you waiting for?" Ulfric growled, pulling his hair away from his neck.

She did not speak. She lifted the sword and brought it down with all her might, jarring on impact. She could feel the blood spatter on her legs, and the head lolled forward, exposing the white bones of his neck and the intricate veins of his throat, though the barest bit of skin held it still to his body. Such an ignoble end for a man whose last thought was of the song his life and death would make. _This is what happens to those who think themselves heroes, _she reminded herself, _this is easily what could happen to _you. _Don't think you are immune to his own end._

"Talos be with you," Rikke murmured, staring down at the macabre remnants of a man who had fought in wars with and against her.

"What was that, Legate?" Tullius said sharply.

"Nothing," said Rikke. There was regret on her face, regret and the light of memory. "Just saying goodbye."

"Don't let the men see you mourn the rebel," Tullius said curtly, nudging Ulfric's corpse with his foot. "Well… Speaking of the men. They will be expecting some kind of speech. And we'll need to hand the city over to that Freewinter." He set his shoulders, as though about to take on a heavy burden, and turned to Sigrid. "It's been an honor to have you at my side, Legate. As a token of appreciation, I want you to keep my sword."

"I don't want it," Sigrid said, and extended it towards him. "Bury it with Ulfric for the sake of his song, or take it back yourself. This is not an auspicious blade."

Tullius raised an eyebrow, and then snorted. "You Nords… ever the superstitious lot. But as you will." He took up his sword again, but not until he had wiped it clean on Ulfric's clothes, leaving a smear of blood on the fine cloth and furs. "And now… to deliver a speech."

She followed him reluctantly through the long hallway, with the pretty silver dishes and food that always adorned the table scattered all over the floor, dotted with pools of effluvia. She followed him even more reluctantly out into the courtyard, where the sun was rising over the smoking city, bathing it in the warm, striking colors of gold and blood. Tullius certainly had a flair for the dramatic she would never have expected—she realized in that moment that he had chosen the timing of the attack on purpose, gambling—or calculating—that they would have conquered the city right as dawn rose above them. A symbolic dawn, of a reunited Empire. She wasn't sure whether to admire him or despise him, and as she shot a disbelieving look sideways at Vilkas, she saw he felt the same. He narrowed his eyes in disgust, and spat on the stones.

"The rebellion is over!" Tullius said, his voice as calm as it had been outside the city. He might have been reciting the weather, for all the passion in his words. The men didn't seem to care: their cheers punctuated almost every sentence. With the war now over, she couldn't blame them, as every sentence served as a validation of their efforts. "Ulfric is dead. His head will be sent to Cyrodiil, where it will adorn a spike on the walls of the Imperial City. Let this be a final warning to all who would still call themselves Stormcloaks! We are turning this city over to Brunwulf Freewinter, an honorable and faithful man. Many of you will be staying in Windhelm to assist the Jarl in restoring order and stamping out any embers of rebellion that may still smolder here. In appreciation for your exemplary service, I am doubling your pay and compensation to the widows of your fallen comrades. I am proud of all of you. All hail the Emperor! All hail his legionnaires!"

Despite the calm of his words, the men loved it. They basked in his curt praise like fawning puppies. What a strange group they must have made: Vilkas in his wolf armor, and Sigrid in her dragon bones, standing stone-faced behind the calm General and his Legate, wordlessly backing them up; the men in their identical armor. All around them, the Emperor's legionnaires raised their swords and cheered. Some of them yelled, some of them cursed their dead foes. Someone had liberated a keg of ale from the Candlehearth Inn, and canteens filled from it, men drank straight from its tap, and some of them began to call raucous toasts to each and sing the old victory songs. A high, clear tenor rose above the din, singing the words of an old battle song with the words changed to fit the current situation: _As the good soldiers march across the main, before us treason fled—and resistance there 'twas all in vain, for we've taken Ulfric's head! _More cheers greeted the song, and encouraged, the erstwhile bard continued singing as Tullius watched the victors' celebration.

"Gods, I hate giving speeches," he muttered.

"It wasn't so bad, sir," Rikke said, with a small, fond smile on her lips.

"I just hope we haven't created a martyr," Tullius said.

"There's bound to be resistance," the Legate shrugged. "There are many Stormcloak camps tucked away in the hills. They'll no doubt strike wherever and whenever they can, but without Ulfric to enflame their passions, they'll settle down and return to their homes eventually."

"I pray you're right, Legate. In the meantime, we will continue to root them out and put them to the sword." He turned to Sigrid and Vilkas, and nodded sharply, and saluted them both, two thumps of his fist against his filigreed armor, once and then twice. "We couldn't have done this without you. The Empire glories in your accomplishments."

She could not trust herself to speak. What would her father have thought, if he could see her now? Surely he would have been proud. Surely that would have made this whole war debacle worth it. _I can't be like the general_, she realized. _I can't be responsible for so many men. I can't disconnect myself from the soldiers that way, can't sacrifice them like chess pieces when it's convenient to do so._ She had never longed for Jorrvaskr more intensely than in that moment, the homey comforts and the familiar faces of the Companions, men and women who she could trust to watch her back. To whom she was more than a face in legionnaire's armor. Instead of saying anything, she merely nodded at the General, hoping that the motion would hide the sudden watering of her eyes. _This bloody smoke_, she thought, scrubbing her filthy hand across her face.

"Will you return to Cyrodiil now?" Vilkas asked, and she almost laughed, because he somehow managed to sound both bland and eager all at once.

Tullius apparently picked up on the barely hidden distaste, and his cool blue eyes met Vilkas' equally cool gray, but there was no rancor in his words. Instead, he was almost meditative as he looked out over his celebrating men, in the stone streets of a city that faced an uncertain future. "No… I suspect Skyrim will be my home for many years. Can't say I'll ever get used to the damn cold, or understand you Nords, but I've come to respect you. The harshness of Skyrim has a way of carving a man down to his true self."

"Now that Ulfric is dead, do you _really_ think there will be peace?" Sigrid asked. She almost couldn't believe it herself. The war that had been brewing for months—even years—could not just end this way, though the man who'd been the entire force of the rebellion by sheer force of personality was gone.

"The fiercest of the remaining rebels will continue to harass us, but by and large, I think the people desire peace. What I'm not so sure about is the peace we've made with the Thalmor. But we'll keep that between the three of us, all right?"

"I suspect all of Tamriel will again be called to arms in the not so distant future," Rikke added, voice low.

Her stomach sank; she had known that war with the Aldmeri Dominion could not be far off, but if Tullius felt sure of it enough to say something, that did not bode well. But she could only concentrate on one problem at a time. Ruthlessly, she pushed the thought from her mind. "Anything further, sir?" Sigrid said.

"Ulfric is dead, and his army is destroyed," Tullius said, rolling his shoulders in a shrug. "There's not much more I could ask of you, Legate. The Gods however, I suspect, may have plans for you elsewhere, and I leave you to them now. You have earned your honorable discharge. Come, Rikke. There is still much to be done."

"And for us," Sigrid muttered, and fought the urge to grab Vilkas' hand in her own.

Though they had won a great victory this day, she could not shake off the feeling of unease that had descended upon her like icy fingers wrapped around her throat.


	31. Blood

_Sad am I, sister, sorrow to tell thee,  
>Woe to my kin unwilling I worked;<br>In the morn there fell…  
>The noblest prince the world has known.<em>

—The Poetic Edda, from _Helgakviða Hundingsbana II, _translated by Henry Adams Bellows

* * *

><p>Vilkas had rarely been so glad to see the upturned boat of Jorrvaskr before in his entire life as he was when he and Sigrid returned to Whiterun. The news of the victory against Ulfric's forces at Windhelm had preceded them, and along the road they encountered a variety of reactions from the townsfolk, most of whom did not realize who exactly the two weary warriors were and what they had just done. The most commonly expressed sentiment, even in deep Stormcloak territory, was relief that the war was over. Of course there were a few die-hards in the inn where they spent a night, and Vilkas had to pull Sigrid back from starting a brawl right then and there when a man made a comment about exactly where legionnaires went when they died. But overwhelmingly, the common people of Skyrim seemed to be looking forward to a return to dealing with their normal foes and frustrations—in this case, bears, bandits, Foresworn, and dragons. It did not surprise him, therefore, that the passing of Ulfric was not mourned so heartily as the man might have hoped. In Whiterun, however, they were both faces rather than legends, and the welcome was true and real and exuberant, and it took some time to drag themselves away from the towns peoples' city-wide celebration and return to Jorrvaskr.<p>

Of course, things would be a bit awkward with Vignar Gray-Mane and his servant Brill, who had supported the Stormcloaks strongly and after the news reached them of Ulfric's defeat, decamped to House Gray-Mane to lick their wounded pride. While it grieved Vilkas to see any Companion, even one so old and inactive as Vignar, act in such a manner, he understood that if Vignar remained it would cause uncomfortable tensions, at least until the fallout from the rebellion had faded. Regardless of how the rest of the Companions felt, it was good to be back in one piece, and to know that neither of them had given in to their darker urges during the final battle. The arrow that had punched through his arm still ached a little, for the potion Sigrid had had available was not quite enough to heal it fully, and he resolved to visit the Temple of Kynareth when he had the time. For the moment, he was content, as Sigrid had done, to declare that for the next week he was doing nothing except sleeping and possibly getting very drunk. Today the order was sleeping, then drinking, then sleeping. Vilkas fell gratefully into his bed, so tired that he did not even dream.

Later that evening, after they had recovered sufficiently with a few hours' sleep and they made sure that the boy slept deeply enough that he would not interrupt the party, the Companions celebrated as they had always done, with ale and song in the mead hall, with tales of great deeds done and battles won. Though Njada was in Morthal on an assignment, the rest of the Companions remained at home. Farkas clapped both of them on the back when he saw them, slinging one arm over Sigrid's shoulders and the other over Vilkas'. Though both Vilkas and the woman were tall, Farkas dwarfed both of them, and it was a bit like being herded into the room by a giant. And though Farkas did not say anything, the grip of his arms and the huge smile on his face told Vilkas that his brother was both relieved to see them in one piece, and proud of him. "Make way for the big damn war heroes!" he said cheerfully, as he walked the two of them towards the place of honor at the head of the table. "A toast to my brother and the Dragonborn!"

Aela raised her glass, and drawled, "To a suicidally stupid venture that turned out for the best."

"Huh?" said Farkas.

"To a suicidally stupid venture that turned out for the best," Athis repeated, raising his mug. "And may all such ventures meet such success!"

"To Vilkas and Sigrid!" Ria said, jumping to her feet. "To the death of Ulfric!"

Without Njada's fiddle to lend to the celebration, there was no dancing this evening, but the ale flowed long. Long enough that Vilkas found himself quite drunk by the night was winding down to a close, stumbling back to his quarters with Sigrid close on his heels. Once the door was closed and locked, they tumbled into bed, both too exhausted and tipsy to even desire anything besides sleep. He found himself stroking her cheek absentmindedly, fingers tracing down the long line of the clawed scars on her face as she closed her eyes and leaned into the touch, a small smile on her lips. "Didn't think it was going to work," she said drowsily.

"What wouldn't work?" he asked, still absentmindedly running his fingers over her face, until they came up to cradle the back of her head in his palm.

"This… whole war thing," she murmured, eyes still closed. "Couldn't've done it without you, Vilkas."

She so rarely said his name in conversation that the casual use of it now, in the alcohol-fuzzed softness of the moment, struck him as significant. Since he had acknowledged that his feelings for her were more serious than he suspected, laying with her like this was a constant exercise in self-control and restraint, making sure that he did not let anything slip, that he did not give himself away and say the wrong thing. Instinctively, he knew that if he told her he loved her, she would run very quickly in the opposite direction, that she might never come back. Just as instinctively, he knew she would have to figure things out on her own. If she ever did. Vilkas was not generally an optimistic man, but something in him knew that he had the right of it here. The wolf was impatient, but the man could wait. And so, as he pulled the blanket over the sleeping woman and let her bury her face in the space between his neck and his shoulder, he waited.

The next few days passed in a blur. Sigrid slept much more than he did, to the point where eventually he strong-armed her down to the Shrine of Talos to pray there in case she had contracted a disease from one of the wild animals on the road. Though she grumbled at him, insisting that she was simply tired as anyone would be after winning a war, she did not fight him, and placed her hands on the shrine to pray, eyes closed. "I'm still tired," she said, opening one eye and glaring at him balefully. "I told you I wasn't ill." Her expression was so put out that he laughed, which only made her glare all the harder.

It was good to be home. He took the quiet time to catch up on the accounts from Velwyn, who had been handling the flow of money in Vilkas and Brill's respective absences. The boy's business skills were impressive—no doubt the result of being raised by smugglers who laundered their money into something more respectable—and he glowed with pride at every short compliment Vilkas gave him. Every day after Velwyn finished his laps around the training grounds and lifting the sacks of potatoes he had been assigned to lift, the boy would follow Vilkas around like a particularly determined shadow. Ria and Athis watched and snickered as he almost tripped over the boy, who had been following just a little too closely.

"Looks like you've got a shadow, shield-brother," Ria said cheerfully.

"At least it's a change from _you_ following him around all the time," Athis observed, and she flushed a brilliant red.

Vilkas merely shook his head and did his best to detach Velwyn from his side whenever possible, encouraging him that, perhaps, he might learn something from the others as well. The boy's eyes brightened at the suggestion, and he instantly attached himself to Farkas' side, chattering questions away while Farkas looked mournfully at his brother, as if to ask, _why did you do this to me? _He only shrugged in response, as innocent as could be. Yes—it was truly good to be home, among family again. Though the threat of the dragons loomed on the horizon, and the promise of a cure lurking below Jorrvaskr, he could not remember a time in recent memory when he had felt _content_, so sure of his place in the world.

At times, he almost felt like a new man.

This might have scared him, a few months back. But not now.

* * *

><p>It did her good to be back home in the comfortable corridors of Jorrvaskr, time-worn by the feet of many Companions who had lived there over the eras since it had been built. Once she had rested up enough that she no longer felt as though she sleepwalked through a haze of spiderwebs, she went back to her normal routine of training, assisting Adrianne at the forge, and helping Velwyn learn the proper form that should be used to lift heavy objects, so that he wouldn't hurt himself during the exercises Vilkas had assigned him. The forge built up a sense of calm and purpose, and dealing with Velwyn was alternately frustrating and endearing. The boy's hero worship of Vilkas amused her more than almost anything, and when the man wasn't around, she secretly encouraged the boy to continue following him. ("Really, he likes it, I promise.") And after a few days of that, she decided that now it would be time to take care of the unfinished business that had been hanging over her head since the Battle of Whiterun. With trepidation, she went up the stairs from Jorrvaskr to Dragonsreach early one morning, before the other Companions had risen for the day.<p>

"Where're you going?" Vilkas muttered sleepily, as he turned towards her in the bed.

"Just taking care of something," she replied, slipping the bag of gold she had saved up into her pack. "Go back to sleep, I'll be back before noon."

He mumbled something incoherent, and closed his eyes again.

The stairs to Dragonsreach seemed very long and high, with the weight of the money she'd earned on her shoulders. Outside, the guards greeted her pleasantly; by now, she had gotten to know the boys who had the shift for the daylight hours, two young Nords named Aenar and Areas, a pair of identical twins who had grown up in the village of Rorikstead, and both of them had sandy blond hair and a multitude of freckles. Aenar (or was it Areas) grinned at her as he saw her coming. "Good mornin' to you, Dragonborn," he said, though the title had a teasing lilt to it.

"Stop it with that Dragonborn nonsense," Sigrid said, grinning back. "I'm not on official business." Not really, anyway. She had not even worn her armor, and was dressed only in a plain, serviceable belted tunic and breeches, and leather boots. She felt uncomfortably light, as though without the weight of the bones on her shoulders she might up and float away on the wind above the palace, and off into the distance over the interminable plains.

Though most of the Jarl's court was still abed, Avenicci, ever the loyal steward, had risen early and was making sure that everything in the throne room remained in order, that no one had snuck in and ruined anything over the night. Just as she had planned for it. As she walked quickly towards him, Avenicci's head came up and his eyes widened. He always looked nervous around her, as though unsure whether she would snap and attack him at any moment. But many of the displaced Imperials living in Skyrim seemed to feel the same way; she would not soon forget General Tullius' casual dismissal of Nord customs in front of his very Nordic second-in-command. "Thane Sigrid!" Avenicci said, with none of the genuine warmth of his daughter's voice. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Business, Avenicci," Sigrid said. "After the battle of Whiterun, Jarl Balgruuf deeded me property, and I wish to take advantage of that deed. And I will pay for any decorations or renovations needed." For she had seen Breezehome, and she knew that the property would require more than a little work before it would be ready for occupancy. Not, of course, that she was planning to _live _there, but… a spare home might come in handy.

"Oh, yes," Avenicci said. "He _did _do that, didn't he." The steward's voice was disapproving, as though it pained him to part with anything for free. "Well, come here, and let me give you the keys. Depending on what sort of decorations you would prefer, it might take a few days to have everything delivered."

"Understandable," Sigrid said, and she accepted the key with some trepidation. It felt heavy in her hands, the weight of a responsibility that she wasn't sure she was prepared for accepting. Slipping the key into her pocket, she carefully counted out the gold needed to buy a bedroom, a spare room, and the living and dining areas. It was more money than she had ever spent at once in her entire life—possibly more money than she had ever _possessed_ in her entire life, and giving it to this sniveling little man smarted.

"Thank you, my thane," Avenicci said, after biting on the coins to ensure that they were real, "your home should be ready within the next week."

She muttered something in reply, and then went off to the guards' barracks to find Lydia. Her housecarl slept in the barracks beds next to all of the other guards, something that Sigrid knew had brought her great shame over the months she had been assigned to Sigrid's side and summarily discarded. "Lydia," Sigrid said loudly. "Wake up."

To her credit, the woman was instantly on her feet, though she looked totally disoriented and confused. Her normally immaculate hair stood up in a lion's mane above her head. "Yes, my thane?" she asked, sounding absolutely shocked.

"I have need of your services."

"…_Really_?" Lydia said, doubtfully. "You want my services? _Now_? I thought you didn't _need_ a housecarl?"

"Yes. I've just bought a house, and I don't plan to spend much time in it, but _someone's _going to have to keep an eye on things, and it will at least get you out of these damn barracks," she said, eyeing the guards, many of whom were cursing the women and telling them to shut up.

"Y-yes," Lydia said, thinking it over.

"You're free, of course, to do what you wish with your own time," Sigrid said hastily. "I don't want you to get the wrong idea about this arrangement. But guard the house, and whatever else is in it, and I will be well-satisfied. Request a spare key from Avenicci. The home should be ready within the next few days."

While it evidently wasn't the answer that Lydia had been hoping for, she nodded sharply, and her "_Yes_, my thane," only had the faintest tinge of sarcasm.

Feeling much better about her decision, Sigrid emerged from Dragonsreach and into as pleasant and sunny a day as one could hope to see, a relief after the relentless snow of the northern regions of Skyrim. She felt quite pleased with herself: in one quick decision, she had secured her future in case anything happened to the Companions but would not need to leave Jorrvaskr, and had provided a better home for Lydia than the guard's barracks. _Listen to you, _she thought dryly, _a regular fucking philanthropist. _But despite the ingrained cynicism that in years past would have prevented her from accepting the gift and worrying about Lydia at all, she felt… good. Lighter. In fact, she was feeling quite cheerful, up until the moment that she heard a cheerful, musical voice call, "Well, if it isn't the newest Thane of Whiterun?"

Sigrid stopped in the middle of the market, and glanced over her shoulder. Ysolda the merchant stood there, one hand on her pleasantly curved hip, the other tucking her dark bobbed hair behind her ears. She was a beautiful woman, Sigrid thought without jealousy or rancor. Sigrid raised an eyebrow. "Hello, Ysolda. How are you this morning?"

"Well, thank you," Ysolda said, her voice a throaty purr as she came towards Sigrid. "And you—you look tired. Busy nights, busy days as the Dragonborn, hmm?" The smile was pleasant, but there was steel behind it.

Sigrid sighed; she was no good at such verbal fencing. She had no subtlety. "What is this about?"

"Just a friendly warning, woman-to-woman, because I don't wish to see Skyrim's savior hurt," Ysolda said, hip cocked and a smile still on her lips. "That man of yours—he'll lose interest soon enough, mark my words."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sigrid said flatly.

"It's happened to me; it's happened to other women in the town, and beyond," she said, with another pleasant, almost pitying smile. "It will happen to you too. One day, you'll wake up and realize he just doesn't care about you anymore. Just so you know. That's the kind of man he is, he's a rover. He might come back, every now and then," and here, she tucked the hair behind her ear again, "but he never stays long. Once you've lost his affection, you'll never regain it. Guard your heart, is my advice."

Sigrid wondered whether it would be possible for the earth to open beneath her and swallow her up. She was confident on the field of battle but this courteous fencing of words eluded her, and the problem could not be solved by simply marching up to Ysolda and punching her in the face, however pleasing that might have been. She had no claim on him, of course… but to be confronted in such a public matter about her private affairs stung. Especially when a voice whispered in the back of her head that, perhaps, the merchant was right… "I still don't know what you're talking about," Sigrid said curtly, and stalked up the steps to Jorrvaskr in what was most certainly not a retreat.

She spent the rest of the day attempting to forget Ysolda's words, difficult when thrown into such close proximity with the other Companions, watching them laughing, teasing each other, and training in the yards.

Later that night, the Huntress pulled her aside. Since she had returned, she had observed Aela carefully. Though there were still drawn lines of grief in her face, the bloody vengeance that the three of them had wreaked upon the Silver Hand seemed to have assuaged it somewhat. "There is more work to be done, with the Silver Hand," Aela said. "But I fear that Kodlak's gotten wind of our recent efforts. He's asked to see you. My advice? Always be honest with the old man, but don't tell him anything he doesn't need to know."

"I'll speak with him in the morning," Sigrid promised, and then awkwardly disengaged herself from the conversation for a second time that day.

She rose early in the morning, and rolled over in their bed—_his_ bed, she reminded herself. He slept still, for they had been awake late in the night, slipping comfortably from talking to sex and back to talking, and some of her unease had begun to smooth away, though the doubt had not totally left her. It amazed her, the difference now from the time she had arrived in Jorrvaskr. Though he was still arrogant and pushy, she found that she didn't mind as much, now that she knew the sort of person he was beneath the harsh, furious exterior. To think of him as a small and furious child, anxious to prove himself, and as a man driven by a desire to protect those he held dear, knowing that at any moment, someone he loved might die. She ran her hand over the muscled length of his arm, fondly. His body had become almost as familiar to her as her own, the scars and the ins and outs of it, the places that made him lean into her hand with a groan, the places that closed his eyes. Under her fingers now, he shifted in his sleep, laying now on his back. After a moment of watching the steady rhythm of his breath, she slipped quietly from the bed, and dressed. Kodlak was an early riser and though she doubted the rest of Jorrvaskr would be awake yet, that suited her best for her purposes.

She dressed quickly, moving carefully so as not to wake Vilkas. He deserved the rest, though she herself had not had as much of it as she wished that night. Somehow, she doubted that the Harbinger wished to see her to share a box of sweetrolls or discuss the latest developments in bards' songs. Still, a sort of cheerful, easy confidence suffused her as she buckled her armor and checked to make sure that it had not developed any weak points during her recent battles. Whatever the Harbinger had in store for her, at least she faced it here, on familiar ground. Home in Jorrvaskr.

"Thank you for coming to speak with me," said Kodlak.

"You wished to see me, Harbinger?" she asked, curiously. She had not spoken much to the Harbinger of the Companions, but she had admired his easy, authoritative manner from afar. And Vilkas spoke of him as reverently as he would a father. To see him up close in his own quarters, the broad shoulders and the ropy muscles still visible beneath his clothing even at his advanced age, was surprising. His mannerisms were of supreme confidence; he was truly the head of this pack, and he knew it. Even now, even as the rot withered away at him, whittled him down from within, he had that innate authority, as though it had only carved him down further to his truer self.

"Yes, youngling. Have a seat." He waited for her to sit, watching her and observing her slight awkwardness. "I hear you've been busy of late."

"Aela and I worked to avenge Skjor's death. And for my own reasons, Vilkas and I, ah…" She could not think of a way to say it so that it did not sound like needless boasting. "We _intervened_ in the war."

"And that was good work, my girl," Kodlak said. "How did you find leading men into battle?" His keen eyes fixed on her face, studying the scars, the oft-broken nose, and she remembered hearing the tales of his own battles in the Great War. He was a man who would understand her reticence, her eagerness to get out of the Legion once she had served in it for her time.

"It's good to be back in Jorrvaskr," she admitted. "I'm… not sure if I'm cut out for the army. To lead men I don't even know to their doom. I can't sacrifice them like pawns as you must do in a larger conflict. I'd rather fight with a shield-brother—I mean, shield-sibling—at my side. A more equal partnership where we both bear the risks and rewards." She bit her lip and looked down. "And I don't like taking orders."

He nodded, slowly, and she knew that he understood. Something about her words had satisfied another question that he had not voiced. "You speak truly," the Harbinger said. "I knew you would come to understand the value of what we have here—not just the legend and history of the Companions, but the bonds forged of steel and blood between the shield-siblings." One eyebrow raised, just ever so slightly, though his serious expression did not change. "And I think, perhaps, heart?"

"Harbinger?" Sigrid said, not trusting herself to say a word. If _he _knew of her dallying with Vilkas… the entire hall must know. Ysmir, the entire city must know. Had Ysolda mentioned it?

"Come now, girl," he said dryly. "I wasn't born yesterday, for all I've spent the last few years down here in my rooms. I still keep a close eye on what's going on in my own damn house." He chuckled, though, and raised his eyebrow. "Vilkas is like my own son, for all I have no blood offspring in this world."

She met his amber gaze and did not flinch, though she could feel her cheeks heating, just a bit. "And?" she managed to say, surprisingly cool.

"He has grown into a good man," Kodlak said, running his finger along the edge of the table. "But an angry man. I worry about him greatly, at times."

"Harbinger?"

"I won't be here forever, my girl. I can feel my death, creeping up on me like a hunter in the night."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I face it with a clean heart, especially now… but we'll get to that in a moment. The point is that when I'm gone, someone needs to look after the rest of the Companions. I've always known that Vilkas would play a major role doing that, from the time he and his brother first came to Jorrvaskr. I believe you know something of his history, yes?"

"Yes," Sigrid said. "He's told me, now that he remembers."

The Harbinger bowed his great gray head, and nodded. "He is… not as strong, in some ways, as his brother. Physically they are of a match, but Farkas has always had an unshakeable, steady personality that Vilkas lacks. He is given to brooding, to allowing himself to become consumed by grief and fury. You have seen this. You know the truth of it."

Strangely, Sigrid felt the urge to leap to his defense, almost getting to her feet to do it. She resisted the urge, and instead her fists clenched below the table. "You said yourself he's a good man," she said, meeting Kodlak's eye, unaware that her eyes held a fierce gleam and her mouth set in a stubborn line. All she saw was the Harbinger's faint smile, one of fond amusement, and it puzzled her. "And he _is_. No one who's lived through what he and Farkas did could come out of it completely intact. And considering—"

"Yes, lass," Kodlak cut her off with a small chuckle. "I know. And Jergen and I were both intensely proud of him. In some ways, he is the best of them all—he has the brains and the heart of a warrior. But he is… impulsive. Too fiery. And I worry about what will happen to him when I am gone, how he will take that loss. In a way, I am his last link to his childhood, to his parents… any parents." Sigrid remained silent, watching, and waiting for him to go on. "And if he falters, all of you will. All I ask is that when I am gone, and I am sure that it will not be long now, is that you keep an eye on him. Draw him back if he goes too far. Out of everyone in this hall, even Farkas, I think that you may be the one best suited to do this. Will you swear me an oath that you will?"

She swallowed, hard, against the lump that had formed in her throat. "I swear it, Harbinger."

"Good. And now to business. Regarding the Silver Hand… your hearts are full of grief, and my own weeps at the loss of Skjor. But his death was avenged long ago. You have taken more lives than honor demanded. The cycle of retaliation my continue for some time."

"Excuse me for saying so, Harbinger, but the Silver Hand are almost destroyed, barely a threat anymore. They have but one fortress left in the entire country," Sigrid said, unable to keep the confidence from her voice. "And they're just bandits—we destroyed Ulfric's army in a matter of weeks. What could _they_ do?"

"Come now, girl," Kodlak said with a chuckle. "You yourself must know that such groups are like dremora: send three back to Oblivion and five are summoned up to take their place. And they have long memories."

It was true, though she did not wish to admit it. "Yes, Harbinger," she said, finally.

"In any case," Kodlak continued, smoothing out the pages of vellum that lay before him. "I have a task for you, girl. Have you heard the story of how we came to be werewolves?"

"Vilkas said it was a curse laid upon the ancient companions," Sigrid said, choosing her words carefully.

Kodlak laughed. "The boy has a nugget of truth, but the reality is more complicated than that, my girl. It always is."

"So what is the truth, then?" Sigrid asked.

"The Companions are nearly five thousand years old. This matter of beastblood has only troubled us for a few hundred—one of my predecessors was a good, but short-sighted man. He made a bargain with the witches of the Glenmoril Coven. If our ancestors hunted in the name of Hircine, we would be granted great power in that hunt."

"And that was how they became werewolves?"

"They did not believe the change would be permanent. The witches offered payment, like anyone else. But we had been deceived."

"The witches should be hunted down for their trickery," Sigrid said shortly, knowing what he had told her of Sovngarde and the Hunt. She did not trust magicians, and these witches sounded worse than most. Those who trifled with the souls of their prey were just as terrible as necromancers in her eyes. It was a desecration of the very humanity that defined these warriors, severing them from their preferred afterlife. A torment that would continue on for eternity, until the very walls of Sovngarde collapsed, until the Hunter had destroyed all of His prey.

"We'll get to that," Kodlak said, smiling thinly at her eagerness. "It's not so simple as just killing them, though. The disease, you see, affects not just our bodies, seeps into the spirit as well. Upon death, we are claimed by Hircine for his Hunting Grounds."

"Vilkas has mentioned it to me," Sigrid said.

"Yes, he would have," Kodlak said, and shook his head. "It grieves me deeply that you've been dragged into this mess of the blood. It's not what I wanted for any of the new Companions, but you've handled it as well as could be expected." The old man sighed, leaning back in his chair, his broad shoulders still hale and hearty despite the fact that the rot had withered his legs.

"Is there a way to cure yourself?" Sigrid asked. "I too would like to go to Sovngarde when it is my time." To see her father again, for he had surely crossed the whalebone bridge and waited on the other side of the gates.

"Ah. Yes, the cure… The crux of the task I have for you, the thing I've spent my twilight years trying to uncover. So many years of research and sleepless nights…" the old man trailed off, suddenly troubled. But he rose, and limped over to his cabinet, from which he took out two small cups, and poured a measure of clear liquid into each, liquid that stank of harsh alcohol.

Sigrid raised her eyebrows, but accepted the cup, knocking it back in a gulp. The grain alcohol burned her throat on the way down, harsh as sandpaper. Kodlak, too, drank, though his face did not change its determined expression. "And what have you found, Harbinger?"

"The witches' magic ensnared us, and only their magic will release us," Kodlak said grimly. For all his kindly air and fatherly mien, in that moment he was all warrior, his face hard and set, and she could imagine that he had once taken on an entire battalion of Aldmeri soldiers almost alone. "They won't give it willingly, but we can extract their foul powers by force. I want you to seek them out, Sigrid. Go to their coven in the wilderness. Strike them down as a true warrior of the wild. And _bring me their heads_, the seat of their abilities. From there, we may begin to undo centuries of impurity."

"It shall be done, Harbinger," Sigrid said.

"Good. Now move quickly, and don't leave any of them alive. Talos guide you, lass."

"Talos keep you," she said, and rose from the chair. "I'll bring you their heads before the sun rises tomorrow."

She left the old man in his room, resolved to leave immediately. It was the least she could do for the old man who had saved Vilkas and Farkas' lives, for a warrior who had held steadfast in his resolve even in the face of withering disease. A quick resolution to the problem that had plagued his elder years.

When she left Jorrvaskr, she was whistling. Now she would have the chance to repay some of the debt of honor she'd owed to the Companions—to Vilkas—for giving her such a welcoming home. The chance to kill a few witches in the bargain didn't hurt, either.

She set out for Falkreath, having gotten an approximate location from Kodlak's map. The shortest route was past the Western Watchtower and carefully avoiding the two giants' camps that were located nearby, and southwest from there. The tower itself, though still in ruins, had had scaffolding set up around it, and construction was well underway to repair it after Mirmulnir had unleashed his fury upon it. She wondered whether anyone had bothered to rebuild Snowsbranch—with all of the villagers dead, the ruined village might as well have been a quiet, forest tomb.

It did not take her long to reach the border of Whiterun and Falkreath, not fully rested as she was and moving at a quick jog, lightly burdened. For the first time in months, Sigrid felt as though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Although she knew that now that the war was over, she would have to speak to the Jarl about trapping a dragon in the palace, but that could wait until she did this service for Kodlak, until she cured the old man and her lover of the beast-blood. And herself, perhaps. For that brief moment, she felt invincible, as sure of the rightness of her path as she had ever been. And spring was truly around the corner, and she thrilled at the smell of the wet, rotting wood and the loamy ground, forest-smells that she had rarely experienced at home in Winterhold, and even less often in the lush climates of Cyrodiil and Elsweyr. It was the smell of birth and regrowth, the country coming back to life after the long winter. She had not been able to properly appreciate it from the back of a cart at Helgen, but Falkreath's gloomy beauty was breathtaking in its own misty way.

As she ran past the entrance of a cave, an explosion of flames on her left knocked her to the ground, as she ducked and rolled out of the worst of the burst. A man in black mage's robes came running at her, hands raised, another ball of fire glowing in them. She was on her feet with her shield up by the time he let the spell fly, catching the brunt of the fireball on the bone face it. Cursing, she ran towards him, but the mage, without armor to hinder him, was too fast for her to reach: he bobbed and weaved, running backwards as he fired off shots at her. Every time she brought her shield up to block the worst brunt of the magic, he got a little farther away.

"Would you just stay still for _one bloody minute_?" Sigrid yelled at him.

"No!" the mage yelled back. "And I'm going to kill you, interloper!"

"Interloper? I wasn't even _interested_ in your gods-damned cave until you tried to kill me!"

"No matter!" the man said, a rolling cackle of laughter dripping from his lips as he merrily attempted to fry her to a crisp. "I'll kill you anyway! I'll burn you alive!"

Sigrid sighed, and wondered whether all mages were secretly mad, and just needed the excuse to let the madness free. Surely, it couldn't hurt to use the Voice… especially since she didn't have the time to waste chasing this madman all over the forest. It would be the first time she had used the words since that terrible day at Kastav, and she was surprised by the apprehension that pooled in her stomach as she Shouted, "_Fus ro dah!_" The push of force hit the mage square in the chest, sending him flying like a rag doll against the stone wall of the mountain, where he lay stunned. That was all of the time she needed: she was on him in a flash, a sudden lunge, and the sword at his throat. She stabbed through it, and he gurgled beneath her, his eyes going wide in surprise and pain. Another choked gasp as she pulled the sword free, and he shuddered and died.

Sigrid wiped her sword clean on his robes, and sighed, marking the location of the cave in her mind. Though there were likely other mages hiding within, she would remain true to her original purpose of finding the Glenmoril witches and bringing Kodlak their heads. It wouldn't due to get herself accidentally killed on a whim when she had a higher purpose in mind. And so, after helping herself to the bag of coins that the dead mage had been carrying, she set off again. She was getting close, some unnameable instinct told her, as she climbed awkwardly up rocky hills and over mountains roads.

Eventually she could see the ominous cave opening in the distance, decorated with stakes that held heads, bones, and ribcages, many with the flesh still clinging to the rotten trophies. _Hagravens, then? _Sigrid thought with a frown. The macabre decorations reminded her of those she had seen outside of the hagraven's nest in Karthspire. She was glad she had a few extra healing potions in her small pack, just in case, for she remembered all too well the day that Esbern had brought her back from the dead at Sky Haven Temple, feeling like a mammoth had trampled all over her chest, the tingling pain of the new skin his magic had grown for her. She moved carefully up the path now, hugging the wall, for there would most likely be a sentry outside.

And she was right, again, a young woman in black robes sitting by the fire, the bored yawn on her face turning into a snarl of fury as she caught sight of Sigrid. _Never been good at sneaking around_, she thought, as she Shouted the woman to her knees. There was no time to waste, no time for scruples. And she could focus on the good she would do for the Companions, not her own rage—there was no danger in that, was there? The fight outside of the Glenmoril coven was short and equally brutal. The young witch did not surrender even when all was lost, scratching at Sigrid's eyes and struggling even as she died slowly from the blade in her guts. And Sigrid cleaned her sword, took a deep breath, and entered the depths of the cavern.

She could see the glow of flames through the wide stone entrance, and moved quietly in the shadows towards them. As she rounded the edge of the hall, she could see the main cavern was a huge, gaping cave with gigantic stalactites descending from the ceiling like spindly fingers. In the center of the cave a fire burned, and beside it, a hagraven paced around it. Even from her vantage point, Sigrid could hear the foul hiss of the monster's breath, the labored breathing that chilled her blood. As she moved forward, something jumped at her from the shadows, and a corrosive burst of spit hit her in the chest—godsdamned frostbite spiders, of course. She kicked at it viciously and lashed out with her sword, hitting wildly as it jumped again and again at her face, until she managed to bring it down. The commotion attracted the attention of the hagraven, who with a screeching yell, lunged for her, long, grasping claws fully extended.

Sigrid was more careful, now that she knew better what to expect from the bird-monster. Lunge forward and back, catch the slashing claws on her shield, where they dragged down the bone with a chilling screech. Dodge the bursts of flame that the hagraven sent flying at her head. A few lucky slashes caught her, raking bleeding lines down her arm, and she grunted in pain. As the hag lunged for her again, Sigrid slammed her shield into the creature's face, bringing it to its knees with a shriek of pain, and while it was down, she whipped her sword across with all of her might, beheading it. Panting, she dropped her shield and crouched to pick up the head by the hair, grimacing at the filthy, greasy feel of it underneath her fingers. The head went into the bag she'd brought specifically for that purpose, and grim burden in toe, she went to explore the rest of the cave systems. She needed, by her count, at _least_ five heads—and she could only hope that within the caverns, four other hagravens waited unknowingly for the touch of her blade.

* * *

><p>When Vilkas woke in the morning, Sigrid was already gone, something that both did not surprise him anymore, but also did not annoy him. With a yawn he rolled out of the bed still rumpled from the night before, pulled on a tunic and breeches, and padded quietly down the hallway to fix a pot of coffee to bring to Kodlak. Lately the old man had not been sleeping much, and had not been in much of a mood to talk, especially not about the cure that he had mentioned to Vilkas before he and Sigrid had left to finish the war. He had never been one to give up easily, however, and so he filled a tray with food and a pot of coffee, and made his way back down to the Harbinger's chambers, hoping that he could finally get some sort of answer from him. Kodlak was already awake, though he was sitting in his candlelit room staring down at his desk strewn with papers as though he couldn't quite believe what he saw there.<p>

"Harbinger?" Vilkas said.

"Vilkas," Kodlak said, looking up. He'd been caught unawares, and Vilkas frowned to realize it. The Harbinger, however, gestured at the other seat at his table, which was still askew as though someone had pushed it back in the haste. "Sit down, my boy. And the coffee is welcome, as ever." With the tray in front of him, he took the time to pour them both a mug of the hot beverage, which he inhaled deeply before drinking. The food, however, remained untouched.

"Have you been feeling ill…?" Vilkas asked, after they'd sat in silence for a while, until it became uncomfortable. There were so many things he needed to ask, but his mouth felt dry around the words.

"Of course I have," Kodlak said dryly. "When you're body's wasting away from the inside, there's not much of a damned way else to feel." He sipped the coffee, slowly, his eyes mellow despite the harsh words. "I'm going to die soon."

"You won't," Vilkas said, stubbornly refusing to accept what the Harbinger had already decided was truth. "We haven't tried everything yet, old man. Danica might not have been able to heal the rot, but there are other healers—in Solitude, perhaps, or even in Riften—"

"No, Vilkas," Kodlak said, quietly but authoritatively. He set the mug of coffee down on the table, and looked the younger man in the eyes, his gaze searching. "My death waits 'round the corners of this hall, and I will look it clear in the face when it comes for me. Come, boy. You know that this is not the end I would have wished for myself, all of those years ago when I was still a fighting man, hearty and strong. Wasting away from the rot? No. At this point, the very _least_ that I can do is come to death clear-eyed and strong-hearted. I will not turn from it. I will _not_ run."

He swallowed, the hot coffee scalding his throat. The pain itself was welcome, a reminder. "Of course not. But the cure—I know you said you'd found it. When will you _achieve_ it?"

"Soon. Very soon, in fact. The plans have been set in motion, and I hope that by the end of the month, we will all be ourselves once more." Kodlak delivered this particular piece of news as calmly as he had the original news of the cure, and Vilkas wondered whether he would ever have that level of calm, that level of control. As he attempted to think of something to say in response, Kodlak's sharp gaze focused on his face. "You are troubled."

"No, Harbinger," Vilkas said instinctively. "I mean—yes."

"You do not wish for the cure?"

"No. I do. I just… fear that once we are cured, I'll find that…" he trailed off, struggling to find a way to impart his worries to the Harbinger that didn't sound cowardly. Didn't sound like he _faltered_.

"That it was never the wolf, and that it was the man?" Kodlak said quietly.

Of course, he should not have been surprised that Kodlak knew his mind so swiftly. It was not just the Harbinger's keen insights into the way a warrior thought or the way that the Circle operated, but over the years, he had truly become a father to Vilkas and Farkas, if not by blood, then by bonds of steel and heart. "Yes. To change, and then to find that the fury is _me_… to have to face that…" He trailed off, fists clenched. "No doubt Farkas told you what happened at the Hall of the Vigilant."

"My boy, there's not much that goes on in this hall that I don't know," Kodlak said pointedly, raising an eyebrow at him. "And yes, I know what happened."

"You never said anything."

"You're not a child to be scolded any longer, Vilkas. You're a man, and you're as capable of mistakes as I ever was."

_You never tortured a woman to get her to agree to an oath. You never massacred an entire camp of men unawares. You never beat a man's face to a pulp_, he thought, but did not say it.

Kodlak looked down. "It's hard to tell, Vilkas, what darknesses of the soul belong to the man and to the wolf. Is one nurtured by the other? Does the wolf merely find the stains in our souls that existed even before the change? It's impossible to say. To pick these things apart, to agonize over what will happen after the change… it's only an exercise in torture, boy. All we can do is accept the things we have done in this life, and hope to face the next with honor and courage."

"How can you be so sure that's possible?" Vilkas asked. "That Tsun won't smell the disgrace upon us when we go to cross the bridge?"

"I can't," Kodlak admitted. "But I have faith. We cannot worry about what will come after the change, we can only concentrate on our own deeds, our own honor. Rely on our shield-siblings for the strength to live our lives as full _men_ once more. It won't be easy. Not after so many years in the thrall of Hircine. But deep down, Vilkas, the wolf is not _you_. It is merely a stain, a stain that will be washed clean. And whatever is left… well, my friend. That will be up to you. And I've known you since you came here as a mewling child. And whatever you think of yourself, you are a man I have been proud to fight beside. And I am sure that you will manage the transformation with as much courage as you have shown in the rest of your life."

He did not answer right away. Though he knew that Kodlak spoke the truth, it could not dispel the fears that had been many years forming in his chest, almost from the first night he had made the transformation and gloried as he ripped the still-beating heart from a bandit's chest and crushed it between his fangs. That savage joy _had_ been the beast's, but it had also been a boy's desire for bloody vengeance. Since then his hands had been so stained with blood, innocent and otherwise. But instead he nodded and said, "Your words are wise, Harbinger."

"I'd damned well hope so, at my age," Kodlak said, with a chuckle. He waved a hand. "Go, Vilkas. Go about your day, and don't trouble yourself too much about problems of the soul. We'll face them as they come, as we've faced all of the other problems in our lives."

Vilkas found himself smiling, despite himself, a quick, reluctant twitch of his mouth. "I will try."

"And let me know when that woman of yours returns," Kodlak said.

If he had been surprised before, he was almost bowled over now. "Ah—yes, I will do that," Vilkas said, and then hurriedly left, before he would have to answer anymore awkward questions.

From upstairs, a crash and a scream startled him into action, a scream and the sound of steel on steel. Vilkas was instantly in motion, as the doors of the living quarters were thrown open, the Companions pouring from them—Farkas still in his armor, Aela alert and eager to throw herself into a fight, Njada as grumpy as ever at having been woken up. No time to think, no time to put on his armor. Only enough time to grab his sword, order Velwyn to stay below stairs, locked in his room, and to run up to face the threat—and when he saw the main hall, his stomach sank.

The Silver Hand, in Jorrvaskr. Almost thirty men and women, armed and armored. Throwing Jorrvaskr into turmoil, knocking over the tables and the benches, screaming. Athis was already upstairs, fighting, and Vilkas threw himself into the fray without a thought to his safety, the exposed parts that his armor would have guarded. As he fought a lightly armored Silver Hand woman with an unsteady hand, the other Companions found their positions: Vilkas and Farkas fought together, whirling to attack anyone who came near, while Aela moved with quicksilver grace and preternatural speed around the room, her shield and dagger lashing out to slit the throats of any man foolish enough to drift within her range, Ria covering her back. Njada, a one-woman wrecking ball, cut a swath through the warriors, a sneer on her face. Even Torvar, though he was still clearly hungover from the night before, had joined in the fray with a wild cry. As Vilkas moved to parry a blow from a greatsword, a lunging man cut at his side with a war axe. Though he began to twist out of the way, it was too late: he could feel the brief line of intense pain, the hot blood seeping from it. But he could not afford to let it slow him down now.

The Companions, when fighting large groups of enemies, did not taunt or shout instructions and encouragement to each other. They did not need to; did not need to risk the enemy knowing beforehand what their movements would be. Even though they were greatly outnumbered by at least three to one, if not more, they so often fought outnumbered that it did not matter. The important thing was to close ranks. The important thing was to move as one, to parry and bash and kick out as needed. He grunted as he drove his sword into the stomach of a woman running at him, tugging it roughly from her side as he ducked the swing of a warhammer, and Farkas beheaded the man who'd attempted to kill him. The hall was crowded with men and women, all of them fighting, and that was what worried him the most: that a battle in such tight quarters would make it easy to injure the wrong person. Even so, the battle was moving quickly: as the Companions were tied down fighting, two Silver Hand scouts ran for the wall that held the shards of Wuuthrad.

"Wuuthrad!" he yelled in warning, though he did not expect that anything could be done. The lives of his shield-siblings were more important than an axe, even an axe with as important a history as Ysgramor's. The Silver Hand were falling, though, dead men like leaves, and he thought that perhaps they might have a chance to escape unscathed.

And then he heard a sound that chilled his blood, a sound that he had not heard for years now: Kodlak's battle cry, a roar that echoed through even the din of the hall. The Harbinger, though it pained him to walk up the stairs, had somehow taken out his war hammer, had somehow made it up from the living quarters, and was rushing at a Silver Hand man who'd turned to face him. Kodlak's hammer struck him in the face, smashing his skull like an egg as bits of bone and gray matter and blood sprayed from the impact.

"Harbinger! No!" Vilkas yelled, but Kodlak was not listening. The old man, unarmored, was rushing into battle, and not a wince of pain could be seen on his grim face. It was a lost cause to argue. "Protect the old man!" he ordered, and the battle took on a desperate edge, then: as the other Companions lost interest in Wuuthrad and attempted to fight their way towards the stairs, the Silver Hand closed ranks: there were too many men yet to merely bull through them. He could see Aela's face very clearly, her lovely features tense and furious: she must have been reliving a very different fight, when another man she'd loved had fallen before her.

_Where is Sigrid_? he thought, but he did not know: she was nowhere to be seen.

As he turned to take the Harbinger's side, everything happened very fast. A blow from a war hammer caught him once, then twice in the arm, and he could both hear and feel the sudden snap and give of his bones beneath it, his very arm shattering under the impact. The sword dropped from his suddenly nerveless hand, and the world seemed to slow as the pain gripped him. And he saw, but could not prevent, the blades descending on Kodlak. He saw, but could not prevent, Njada throwing herself at the Harbinger in an attempt to knock him out of the way, and he saw her fall short. He saw Kodlak catch the first blow on the staff of his hammer, and the second cut him in the side. The Harbinger cried out, and brought the hammer up to strike, but he was old, and he was slow, and he had spent much of the last few years barely moving from his seat. It was not even a question that the four men surrounding him could bring the old bear to bay. Vilkas saw in excruciating clarity the life leave Kodlak's body, saw it crumple, saw it fall.

The wordless roar of fury that escaped him was more animal than man.

The emotions that surged through him in that moment were intense and confused, rage and loss and pain all at once—and even as he felt the loss of Kodlak, his mind dredged up again the memories of his mother's death, the men laughing as she collapsed.

Though his dominant arm, the left, lay useless and bleeding, he managed to snatch a one-handed weapon from a dead Silver Hand member, throwing himself back into battle, giving in to the black rage that grasped his chest and squeezed. The iron sword was blunt, and cut roughly through the throat of the man he faced, who died with a gasp and a cry. His entire world narrowed down to killing as many of them as he could, hacking, slashing, as he went. The throbbing pain of his arm was a distraction he could not afford as he threw himself forward, meeting the his enemy's blade in a clash of steel. He disengaged, lunging a feint at the man's left side, and at the last minute flicking his wrist to stab through the man's right. The man fell, but had not died, and Vilkas found himself on the ground, smashing the sword blade repeatedly into his face until nothing remained of him, giving in to the furious desire to wipe this man off the face of the earth. He would have kept at it, until someone pulled him away, and he almost whirled around to attack that man, too.

"Brother!" Farkas said.

It was only then that he saw that the remaining Silver Hand had fled—with the fragments of Wuuthrad, for now that they had what they wanted, they had not stayed long to face their doom—or were only bodies, littering the hall. He looked up at his brother, bloodied but unharmed, and allowed the iron sword to fall from his hand. Farkas helped him to his feet, frowning at the broken left arm, and together they surveyed the devastation. Kodlak's body, crumpled on the ground, caused a fresh pain to sweep him. _I have failed him_, Vilkas thought bitterly. _When he needed me most, I have failed him._ As he had failed his father, and his mother before the old man.

"Don't do that," Farkas said, his eyes red-rimmed, his jaw set hard.

"What?"

"I know what you're thinking," his brother grunted. "Just don't do it."

"I failed him," Vilkas said, and even in his own ears, his voice sounded cold and inhuman.

Ria came to them, tentatively, a healing potion in hand. Though he drank it, the cloyingly sweet potion was bitter on his tongue, bitter as the thoughts of vengeance that consumed his heart. "Driftshade Refuge," he said shortly. "That's where they've come from. We _should have_—" He stopped. There was no use for should haves, not now. The old man was dead and the grief threatened to allow the wolf a hold on his soul that it had not possessed for many months. He took a deep breath, and concentrated on the feeling of his arm knitting itself back together, the exquisite pain of healing as bones cracked and reformed and knitted back together, as flesh closed and blood vessels knit themselves together. It was a strong potion, and after several minutes he could feel his fingers flex. In vain. The hand had not saved Kodlak's life.

"Stay here and guard his body," Vilkas said. "I'm going to armor myself. And then I'm going to kill them all."

* * *

><p>Five heads heavier, Sigrid set off from Falkreath with a jaunty step. When she returned to Whiterun, the rain was falling steadily, heavily, the gray sky above weeping down on the city. <em>I can't wait to get back into that damn hall<em>, Sigrid thought, _change out of these damned wet clothes and sit before the fire awhile. _Perhaps allow Tilma to make her a cup of tea spiked with whisky. And the thought of a warm bed and a warmer body in it seemed very appealing at that moment, and she quickened her step as she went through the gates. One of the guards eyed her bloody sack suspiciously. "What's in the bag, Companion?"

"Witch heads," she said, and was rewarded by a revolted recoil and a faint gagging noise.

"I hope they were worth it," the guard replied, when he had recovered.

"What do you mean?" Sigrid asked, stomach sinking.

"Get you to Jorrvaskr," he said, and there was almost a pitying note in his voice. "You'll see."

Afterwards she would never quite remember how she made it from the gates to Jorrvaskr. She was walking, and then she was running as fast as she could, as though the dragon armor and the heavy sack of heads slung over her shoulder weighed nothing at all. The rain streamed down her helm and into her eyes and she blinked it away as she took the steps up to the Wind District two at a time, fearing what she might find at the top. Heimskr's little shack was still destroyed, but Jorrvaskr seemed intact; no smoke rose from its wooden roof. Something was wrong, though—two figures at the top of the stairs stood with swords drawn, crumpled bodies at their feet. Aela and Torvar, and two dead men in the armor of the Silver Hand, their faces slack and bloodied.

"The Silver Hand—" Torvar said, his voice cracking. For once, the jovial drunk was totally sober; completely serious. "They finally had the nerve to attack Jorrvaskr. We got most of them, but I think a few stragglers made it out…"

"_These_ two aren't a problem anymore," Aela said, with a sharp, feral smile that had nothing but hatred behind it. "Go inside. The others are in the hall. You'll want to speak to them."

And with a deep sense of foreboding, she went up the stairs into Jorrvaskr, and when she saw the scene that greeted her, she gasped, and for a moment, Kodlak's bloodied body on the ground was overlaid by another man's wounded form in the snow, and she remembered with a painful immediacy the horror she had felt, finding her father. She forced herself back to the present, but the creeping horror did not abate. The Harbinger lay dead, crumpled on the ground like a broken toy, and Njada and Farkas crouched beside him, guarding him in death as they could not have done in life.

"Farkas?" Sigrid said, crouching down next to Kodlak's body. "What happened?"

The big man shook his head, face twisted with grief, rocking back on his heels. One of his hands rested on Kodlak's arm, on the chilled flesh of a man who had been as his father, the huge fingers gentle as a child's. No tears streamed down his face, but there was a blackness in his eyes that was uncharacteristic. If anyone doubted that Farkas grieved, and grieved deeply, his silence and that hollowness would put those doubts to rest. Njada too refused to speak, refused to meet Sigrid's eyes. Surprisingly, there was no accusations in the sharp-tongued woman's face, but the grief in her ran deep, despite her cynicism. She knew how much the old man had meant to the Companions, but to see it, stark in the hunched lines of their shoulders, was another thing all together. Suddenly, another thought gripped her and she thought: _Vilkas? Where is he? Is he…? _In that moment, the intense fear she had felt in the bowels of the Frostflow Lighthouse returned full force, shoving aside even her own grief for Kodlak and leaving her breathless. If the Silver Hand had killed him, she would…

The sound of footsteps on the wooden floor. She looked up and—

"_Where have you been?_" Vilkas demanded, and his voice was dark and rough, as she had almost never heard it before. She could almost feel the rage radiating from him as he stalked forward, pulling her roughly to her feet, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. Although instinct screamed at her to throw off his arms, to fight back, and indeed her arms tensed to shove him away, her personal knowledge of him—and the grief he must be feeling—stayed her hand.

"I was doing Kodlak's bidding," she said, and his fingers tightened on her arms, painfully. She yanked free but he was faster, grabbing her by the throat and squeezing his fingers so that to pull away again would be near impossible without injuring herself further.

"I hope it was _damned important_ then," he growled, "because it means you weren't around to defend him. They finally found enough courage to attack Jorrvaskr. We fought them off, but the old man… Kodlak… he's dead." She could feel him shaking, though whether it was grief or rage or both, she could not tell. He was full of a boiling, black fury now, and part of it was directed at her—for not having been there to protect their home—and strangely, that hurt her more than the loss of Kodlak. More than his fingers closing around her throat, hard enough to bruise. She felt it as a sharp twinge in her gut, a potent mix of guilt and grief and loss of whatever fragile thing had built between them. Something that she hadn't even realized had become as vital to her as her sword and her shield.

Abruptly, he released her, and she stumbled at the change in balance, one hand rising to rub gently at her neck. "Was anyone else hurt?" she asked. Velwyn. She didn't see the boy.

"No. No one. But they made off with all of the fragments of Wuuthrad we'd recovered so far. And you and I are going to reclaim them. We will bring the battle to their chief camp. There will be _none_ left to tell their stories. Only songs of Jorrvaskr will be sung," he said. His voice sounded strange: thick and clotted, and in that moment, she saw a side of him that she had only glimpsed before. This was the part of Vilkas that he called _monstrous_, for she could see the desire to rip the Silver Hand apart, to destroy and raze and _murder_. Behind the familiar gray eyes was something entirely alien to her: this was Vilkas the wolf, as close to the surface as it could have come without bursting from his skin, even more bloodthirsty than the night on the plains. She could almost see the rippling of it on his arms, the blood yearning to break free, to release the animal to run wild. He had that much control, at least, but only enough for that. "We will avenge Kodlak. And they _will _know terror before the end."

"But Kodlak said—" she began.

"_And now Kodlak's dead_," Vilkas cut her off with a growl, his eyes lit with that terrifying fury. "And we're going to make them pay. You. Come with me."

"Vilkas, I—"

"Just… don't. Don't talk, woman. I need your blade but I don't need to hear your damn words. Your fucking _excuses_." He did not wait for her to respond or to follow him, but stalked from the room, leaving her poleaxed in his wake. After a moment, she exhaled the breath she hadn't realized she'd held deep in her lungs, and squared her shoulders. Whatever he felt about her, she could not afford to let it slow her down. She could ease the pain of _that_ particular wound later, one way or another.

But for now, she had a Harbinger to avenge.


	32. Revenge

**AN: **Thank you to everyone who's favorited, alerted, read, and reviewed. :) And dear, dear Chapter 31 anon, thank you _so_ much. I was feeling rather discouraged about this story and everything recently and your review made my evening the night you posted that.

Also, I hope you guys don't find one of these scenes too over the top…

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><p><em>Cattle die and kinsmen die,<br>thyself too soon must die,  
>but one thing never, I ween, will die,—<br>the doom on each one dead._

—The Poetic Edda, from _Hávamál, _translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>He did not speak to her as she went down to the quarters to hide the witch heads beneath her bed in the whelps' quarters, a bloodily macabre surprise for anyone who wished to snoop in her things. He did not speak to her as she restocked her pack again, preparing for the journey ahead of them, leaving the Skyforge steel behind in favor of the ebony sword. He did not speak to her as she rejoined him in the hall of Jorrvaskr, cleared now of bodies. He did not speak to her as he let the Jorrvaskr door swing shut in her face, nor as they walked down the stairs from the mead hall to the Plains District. She followed him in equally wordless silence through the gates of Whiterun and out onto the plains, unsure of how to breach the silence. Her own grief and guilt at Kodlak's passing was intense—this would be the third time that her unintended absence had lead to the death of loved ones—but she could not show it in front of him, could not speak to him of it when his own sorrow was a black hole that could swallow hers and crush it. When his rage at her absence at such a critical moment was so palpable, an almost physical barrier between them.<p>

She was totally at a loss. In previous years when she had an argument with a comrade in arms it could easily be settled with a fist fight, a straight out brawl, and when that was over, she and the companion in question could go on with their lives as though nothing had happened. She had done it so many times over the years, even from the tender age of fifteen, when Agrub the orc had knocked her to the ground with one swift fist to the face and a warning: "Don't annoy an orc again, girl." In this situation she could do nothing. Punching him in the face would not have the desired effect. Neither could she hope that a brawl would solve the problem, not when he was practically vibrating with a tense fury. Too much had passed between them to rely on the old and simple ways. But as they moved quickly over the Whiterun plains, north towards the Red Road Pass and through the gap in the mountains, he would not stop, would not look at her. And she was no good at talking about feelings. Hell, she wasn't very good at interpreting her _own_ emotions.

The rain had not let up, and it dripped from her helmet and into her eyes, running down her armor and beading on the furs that she wore beneath it, churning the ground into squelching mud as they went. The torrential spring rains would continue throughout the month, and never, she thought, had the weather had a more appropriate sense of dramatic timing to match her mood. Even when they paused to meet a bandit or a wolf, he did not speak to her. Cleaning his sword, she could see the tense line of his shoulder as he refused to meet her eyes. Though they had been moving across the plains for some time now, his fury of the morning had not abated, but burned as brightly as ever. As the journey went on she found that the silence filled her with the desire to break it, to pop that impenetrable bubble, but she could think of nothing to say, nothing that did not sound hollow. The bruises he had left on her throat throbbed as she rubbed her neck.

Eventually, she could not take the pressure anymore, of wondering when he would speak, or when she would be able to break the silence. Somewhere around the border of Whiterun and the Pale, marking where they would camp for the night, whenever they could find appropriate shelter to set up the little kit tent and bedrolls. "Vilkas," she said, voice sounding far too loud in the silence that had been broken only by the bird calls in the trees. "I told you, Kodlak sent me on—"

He whirled on her, the pale eyes flashing with rage, mouth grim and jaw set. "Did I tell you, woman, that I don't wish to hear your excuses?"

"You're being bloody unreasonable," she snapped, frustrated. "I—"

"Is it unreasonable," he said, turning around again and continuing to stalk across the plains, his voice a deathly calm, "to be angry you were not there to protect your Harbinger? I've told you that you can't just go running off whenever it bloody suits you—"

"But I _wasn't running off_," Sigrid shot back at him, moving forward to catch his shoulder beneath her fingers. "I told you—Kodlak sent me to recover the Glen—"

She did not finish, because he moved quick as a snake, his hand lashing out to smack hers away. When she moved for him again, the same hand grabbed her wrist. "Don't touch me, woman," he growled, and the alien thing was behind his eyes again, dangerous and deadly.

"I know you're grieving," Sigrid said, her voice sounding high and strange in her own ears. "I grieve too. But I tell you that—"

"I _don't want to hear it_. Whatever the reasons, you weren't _there_. You _failed_," he said roughly, the deadly calm giving way to something cutting and cold. His eyes, when she looked up at him, were ice. "That's apparently what you're bloody best at doing, isn't it? Not being there when you're needed?"

She stared at him, eyes wide. "How _dare_ you!" she choked out. In that moment, something in her snapped. Whatever compunctions she might have had about not solving the problem with a fist fight vanished. Later on, she might realize that he must have consciously, or subconsciously, needed to deal with the roiling emotions and his own feeling of failure with a fight. But in the heat of the moment, all she could feel was the desire to punch his stupid face into a pulp, and so she did, lashing out with her fist. It connected with a satisfying _thump_ to his cheek, snapping his head back. His eyes narrowed and he reacted without thinking, releasing the wrist he'd gripped in his hand, as weapons dropped and he tackled her to the ground.

It was a messy, brutal fist fight on the muddy ground, neither of them able to gain the upper hand, even more so than when they had fought the first day on the Jorrvaskr training grounds. She threw her punches regardless of whether they hit skin or armor, regardless of whether it hurt, consumed only by the anger that his unfair condemnation and the last words had lit within her, fanning her confused emotions to a flame, only by the desire to hurt him as much as he had hurt her. He fought just as viciously, without cause or reason, only seeking an outlet for his grief and rage. They fought like animals in the wild, and for a moment she feared that he might give in and transform right before her eyes. His wild eyes, one of them blackened, were narrowed as they traded punches and kicks and she butted him in the mouth with her forehead even as his fist came up to push her back. Now her nose was bleeding; now she had split his lip open. _We should be fighting the Silver Hand, not each other_, she thought, but it was too late to withdraw. Her pride made it impossible to surrender now. In his fury he made sloppy, clumsy mistakes, allowing her to take the advantage and shove him down to the ground, straddling his waist. "_Do you yield_?" she demanded, fist raised to smash him in the mouth again if necessary.

"No," he said, and with a wrench of his legs and stomach muscles, he threw her off of him and then rolled on top of her, turning the tables in one neat movement.

Pinned beneath his weight, she struggled, but it was a futile fight. Despite the fact that they were evenly matched when fighting free, he outweighed her, especially in his armor. Especially with the force of his anger holding her down. Just as he had done on the first day in Jorrvaskr, he had trapped her. There was no escape. "What," she croaked, the wind knocked out of her, licking the blood from her upper lip as it still trickled down from her nose, "are you trying to _do_?" She could feel her heartbeat hammering an irregular tattoo in her ears, loud as a hammer at the anvil.

"I—" he said, eyes troubled, his own face bruised and bloodied, the rain trickling down and marking furrows through the filth.

And then, without knowing where the urge had come from, for she was still furious enough to spit at him, she wrenched her arm free of his grasp and grabbed him by the hair, tugging his head down to hers. He fought the desperate kiss at first, but she had her fingers wound too tightly in his hair for him to pull away. Even so, his mouth was unyielding under hers for a long, breathless moment and she feared he would push her away. That he would reject her. But then he gave in suddenly, and he opened his mouth to her lips, to her tongue, and his eyes closed as he returned the kiss passionately, though whether the passion was born of desire or anger she could not tell. His body atop hers did not relax and what followed next was a frenzied fumbling of hands at armor and clothing as they tried desperately to move closer to each other, a mess of arms and legs in the mud. She gasped as he shoved his hands roughly beneath her breeches. To an observer there could not have been much difference in their movements now than in the fight moments before; there was nothing tender about his hands or hers. She bit his ear when his head dipped too close, and in response, he took her roughly with his fingers, without regard for ease or comfort, and she thrust herself against them with a groan of both arousal and despair.

In her rage and lust-fogged mind, she knew deep down that this would fix nothing between them, that only words could perform such a mending. But just that second, in the grip of her impulsive, furious feelings, she did not care, could concentrate only on yanking his hair roughly, in the feeling of his hands on her, in taking him in her hands too after wriggling her arm out of its bone gauntlet, her fingers cold on the warm skin of his cock as he shuddered at the touch. She could taste the metal and salt of the blood on his mouth as she claimed it in another kiss, and he gasped when she bit him again there, on the split of his lip.

"_Bitch_," he growled, his free hand tugging her breeches down further.

"_Bastard_," she retorted, and that startled a laugh from him, a sound that she had never been more surprised or thrilled to hear. "I—_ah_." The sudden force as he moved his hands away from her body and shoved himself into her widened her eyes before they slipped shut again as he began to move, rough and ragged and arrhythmic. She clawed at his back but her fingers found no purchase on the armor, and she was forced to grab his hair again instead, for something to hold onto, something to steady her. The sensation of him, the rough friction and the confused mess of feelings that gripped her were too much. It was all too much. For a moment she was unsure whether she was laughing or crying, for the rain was still streaming down her face, and the moment was so absurd and painful all at once that she honestly could not tell. She realized after a second that she was laughing, after all, and that he was muttering her name over and over again—_Sigrid, Sigrid, Sigrid—_voice breaking as they moved together with the same desperation with which they had fought.

"_Please_," she said raggedly, and did not know why that particular word had escaped her, out of anything she could have chosen.

"_Sigrid_," he said again, in much the same tone that she had just used, and reached for her face. The hand that had lashed out at her only moments before gripped her chin, forcing her to look at him. She opened her eyes and met his, wild and more than slightly crazed, the gleam of the wolf's gold shot through them. He looked both furious and terrified and almost tender despite all of it, though it was a tenderness bittersweet and bruised. And that glance marked the exact moment that a wall in her heart collapsed, abruptly, beneath the siege of emotion that beset her. He shuddered atop her and she knew that despite everything that had gone between them, that without him her world would be bleak and empty indeed. She tried to tell him this, or something like it, but she could not form the words, especially not as his hand was moving urgently between the place where their bodies still joined, forcing her into a wordless, breathless cry.

When she opened her eyes again, he had pulled away from her, dressing hastily. She sat up from the muddy ground and followed suit, her hands shaking. The tension between them had not abated with the fight or what followed, and it was in a miserable silence that she helped him set up their camp for the night, a small fire and an equally tiny tent to keep off the worst of the rain. Not that it mattered much, as they were both muddy and filthy, looking like creatures that had crawled from the mud at the side of the river. Though he had not the burning fury towards her that had lurked in the tense lines of his shoulders during their journey, he still did not act normally towards her. He was subdued; barely looked at her as they ate their meal of dried horker loaf and hardtack, or as they unrolled the bedrolls and slept on opposite edges of their tiny tent. Though their bodies still touched, it was with none of the ease and warmth that such a contact usually carried, and she felt the lack keenly. _This is why getting involved with anyone was a terrible idea, _she thought sourly to herself as she attempted and failed to sleep. _You're an idiot. Whatever—that—was, you should have known it wouldn't have changed anything_.

When she eventually drifted off to sleep, it was dreamless and restless in equal measures. And when she woke in the morning reaching instinctively for a body that was out of reach, she shook her head at her own folly. Thank Ysmir they were close to Driftshade. She could do with someone to kill.

* * *

><p>Vilkas had rarely felt such inner turmoil as he did the morning that he and Sigrid set off for Driftshade Refuge. A small part of his mind, the rational part of him that had been drowned out beneath the grief and call for blood, knew that he had been and was continuing to act unreasonably. Even if Sigrid had been at Jorrvaskr, Kodlak would probably still have perished. The old man was too weak to fight, and there had been so many Silver Hand swarming the halls… With a growl of frustration, he pushed the thoughts back, only to find himself fixating again on the fury that had consumed him, that <em>still<em> consumed him. The misplaced rage he had unleashed upon Sigrid was also on his mind, the brief moment of intense hurt in her eyes when he had thrown those unforgivable words in her face. He had wanted her to feel as wrecked, as ashamed of herself, as he had felt of his own failure. _And I succeeded_, he thought, darkly. The hot shame burned through him—this was not how a man talked to _anyone_, let alone a woman he loved, still.

There was nothing he could say that would make this situation easier. An apology alone could not possible have sufficed. As they broke up their camp, the tent collapsing in on itself as she folded it and shoved it into her pack, he glanced sideways at her when she wasn't paying attention. She had managed to wash the blood from her nose, but she sported a black eye and a rapidly purpling bruise on her left cheekbone—in short, she looked awful. He knew he did not look any better, for she gave as good as she got, if not worse. His fingers traced the bruise of her first punch, almost admiringly. The woman did not do anything by half-measures, at the very least. _Stop it,_ he thought viciously at himself. There was no use in mooning over her now, when she deserved an apology—at the very least—and he was unable to force himself to say the words. _Kodlak was wrong about the wolf and the man. Some stains are ingrained too deeply to remove._

Instead, they began the last leg of their journey. From here, it was not far to Driftshade Refuge, the last stronghold of the Silver Hand. Though his overwhelming sense now was one of morose despair, the fiery vengeance that had taken hold of him then began to warm his stomach. And Sigrid followed silently, a grim look on her scarred face. Together they would wipe the Silver Hand from the face of Nirn. Once this thought would have given him satisfaction, but now, it merely satisfied the lust for vengeance and nothing else. He could sleep easier at night when they were dead, but it would bring him no joy.

Driftshade itself was a small, squat building, more underground than above, set off of a narrow road that split off between two mountainous areas. That was what galled him the most: that he knew where it had been the entire time, but had done nothing. The men that had murdered the Harbinger could have been killed themselves, had not Farkas stayed his hand. _Farkas was right at the time. And he would probably not approve of what you go to do now. Or the darkness in your heart._

When they saw giants in the distance he knew they were close. Instead, they moved to the east now, splitting off. There would be a guard at the door and perhaps a guard atop the snow-covered structure. Even now, in this strange limbo of feelings he could not decipher, she knew exactly what to do, exactly how to work with him without even having to say a damn word. As she lunged for the guard outside the door, he looped around to the rear, and came up quickly behind the other guard, grabbing his head and cutting the man's throat before the scream of Sigrid's victim could reach him. _Two dead_, he thought grimly, rejoining her. She nodded and jerked her head at the door, indicating that he should take the lead. Even after everything, she knew what he needed, and so he squared his shoulders and kicked down the door. The wooden frame smashed into the Silver Hand guard who'd been hiding behind it, knocking him to the ground. As he struggled to throw the weight of it from his body and lunge to his feet, Sigrid had already kicked him down again, and Vilkas had stabbed him in the gut.

It was a sad sort of refuge, with piles of straw covering the stone floor and weak torchlight guttering on the walls. A yawning staircase opened before them, and Vilkas led the way down it as it curved around, eventually opening into a wider hall, where two of the Silver Hand looked up and saw the Companions bearing down on them. Again, moving with clockwork precision, they broke off, Sigrid going for the man and leaving Vilkas to fight the woman, a silver sword in her hand. It was laughably easy to disarm her, the sword irreparably broken: soft silver gave way beneath Skyforge steel, and she had kept her blade in poor repair. She went for him with her fists, anyway, and he cut her down without another breath. He could see Sigrid, from the corner of his eye, chasing an archer around the room as he backed hurriedly away, raising her shield to take the brunt of his arrows. Vilkas decided that for once in his life, he could be a gentleman: while the archer was otherwise occupied, he came up behind him and stabbed the man through the throat.

"Thanks," Sigrid said.

"Don't mention it," he said shortly, and they continued around the curving hall, to a room with ruined bookshelves, wine bottles scattered atop their shelves. The more of the Silver Hand they encountered, seeing their furious faces contorted in the torchlight, the more he remembered Kodlak's fall. The rage grew, but not in the usual way of the wolf. It was controlled, and calculated. A tool that he wielded instead of allowing it to wield him. In a way, that was worse. As they shoved open another door and the Silver Hand who'd been waiting in that hall ran for them, he cut systematically, brutally through them. There was no doubt that this was _Vilkas_ enacting his revenge. Kodlak would have hated it, to see him like this, with only the thought of wiping them from the earth on his mind, without even the dark, animal urges that usually came with such feelings. The wolf wanted this too, but it was the man in control. But Kodlak was dead, and it was these men and women who were responsible, and he would kill all of them in recompense. They would pay the blood price.

When they came to a locked door, he glanced at her, as if to ask _would you_? She obliged, stepping back and using the _thu'um_ of unrelenting force upon it: the bolt must not have been strong and the hinges weak, for the door exploded off of them, backwards into what proved to be a bedroom. The woman sleeping there had barely a chance to lunge to her feet before he was on her. He could feel Sigrid watching him when they were moving, as though trying to puzzle something out. She did not question him, though, more subdued than her usual battle taunts, and more controlled than her recent rage. She guarded his back and let him wreck his own vengeance, slowly but steadily wiping out the remaining Hand in his path. Eventually they came to a spiked gate, opened with a lever, that led down to another wooden door. "How damn big _is_ this place?" he muttered to himself, remembering how small the building had seemed from the outside. When she said nothing, merely followed him around winding rows of barrels, he realized abruptly how different it was to fight with her like this, without jokes or conversation. _You unmitigated arse_, he thought savagely to himself. _You've ruined everything_. The thought made him almost glad to see the Silver Hand man running towards him screaming, "Time to end this little game!" as they entered and area full of cages. At least that particular problem could be ended with a fist to the face and a sword through the belly.

Sigrid eyed the dead werewolves in those cages with a grim expression. The stench of blood and death rose from them, sweet and cloying, as they continued on their way down seemingly identical, interminable corridors, until they found themselves in a low-ceilinged hall, an icy tunnel at the edge of it. She waited for his cue, and when he threw himself into the fray with a battle cry, she followed, keeping guard at his back. Vilkas' attention narrowed on first one Hand then another, attacking with such speed and fury that they fell before him like leaves before the wind. The more of them he killed, the more a fierce joy filled his heart, a sickening pleasure at having been the instrument of their doom, that they would know terror before the end. Sigrid followed him warily through the icy corridor at a slight distance, as though she could see something in his face that made her uneasy.

At the top of the icy ramp was a cage, with a live werewolf within, pacing back and forth, growling and occasionally breaking out in a howl. Sigrid glanced at him, and he nodded. "We can't leave him there," he agreed. As they approached, the werewolf watched them with beastial eyes, panting. Blood matted its coat, and the implements of torture on the table nearby left no doubt what had caused them. He had a few lockpicks in his pocket, luckily, and the lock was sturdy but not a complicated mechanism. With a little wiggling of the picks, it popped open, and the wolf within instantly lunged for him. Vilkas jumped back, narrowly escaping a swipe of the beast's claws. "Kinsman!" he said. "Stand down. We're friends!"

"I don't know if he…" Sigrid said, then yelped as the wolf went for her, the huge paws outstretched to grab at her body. She smashed it in the face with her shield, staggering it. "I don't think it _knows_ anything anymore."

"It would be a mercy…" he trailed off, as the beast circled them, with all of the crafty cunning of an animal, looking for an opening.

"I know," she said, as she stabbed up through its jaw, into its mouth, into the skull. The wolf collapsed on the bloody snow. "A damn shame."

They left the werewolf's body there, and made their way through another torture chamber, the various instruments stained with gore turning his stomach. He slew the Khajiit there without remorse, bringing his sword down hard upon the cat's unarmed face. The more of them he killed, however, the more hollow his revenge became. They were only men, dying beneath his blade, men who believed _he_ was a monster. Perhaps rightly. By the time they came to the final room, his blade slick with blood, he had grown weary of slaughter, some of the battle-joy wearing from him as he methodically brought his sword up to block a slash of the sword of the man who seemed to be their leader, dressed in fine steel plate armor. This would be the end of the Silver Hand in Skyrim, but killing this man would not bring Kodlak back to life. The Harbinger would be burned tomorrow, and this man would rot in the bowels of Driftshade. And that would be the end of it. It was with a dispassionate stab that he dispatched the officer, Sigrid still fighting furiously with another behind him. He could hear the body fall, and he turned to see her looking up at him with a strange look in her eyes, one he hadn't seen before.

"We must find the fragments," he muttered, looking away as he stalked towards the stairs on one side of the narrow hall in which they'd been fighting, as she took the other. He found only chests full of treasure, and so helped himself to the gold within.

As he as looking, she said, "Here." Turning, he saw her across the room, carefully taking the fragments so as not to cut her fingers on the sharp edges, and wrapping them up in a cloth. "Are you… all right?"

"Fine," he said, though he was not so sure. Revenge had proven hollow, and the cold way that he had slaughtered the men and women in the fortress sat ill with him. He might have forever ruined things with the woman he loved. And his 'father' was dead. "We should get back to the hall. They'll wait for us before the funeral, but I don't want Kodlak's rites held for us." Not for _this_. Not for this hollow vengeance. But all he could do was what he always did: continue moving forward, continue being the strong shoulders on which the world of Jorrvaskr balanced.

He went on.

* * *

><p>When they finally made it back to Jorrvaskr, filthy and covered in blood and mud and gods only knew what else, Tilma took one look at the two of them and ordered them into the baths before they were allowed to so much as set foot outside again. "And mind you don't go tracking that filth around my nice clean hall, I <em>just<em> managed to get the blood out of the floor and now you're tracking it in again. Go _now_." There was no arguing with Tilma when she was on the warpath, and she was already muttering to herself and going to grab a mop and broom. Sigrid did not even attempt to argue, but went with Vilkas, in silence, down to the baths. They cleaned themselves, still unspeaking, and he did not meet her eyes, did not even look at her. She could not tell whether it was due to shame, or whether he was still furious with her for Kodlak's death. When both of them felt human enough again, they rose from the baths, but he moved off silently to his room, and she to the whelps' quarters to dress.

As she was buckling the belt atop her tunic, he knocked lightly on the doorframe so as not to startle her. She looked up and met his carefully stoic gray eyes, questioning.

He was silent for a moment that seemed to take an age. "The others have probably prepared Kodlak's funeral by now. Come up to the Skyforge to pay your respects," Vilkas said curtly to her, and nothing else.

"Aye," she said, not trusting herself to say anything else. She followed him up the stairs to the Skyforge, remembering the day, not so very long ago, that they had mourned another Companion lost to the Silver Hand. The same flags had been raised, red banners against the pale morning sky. She thought of Kodlak's blood flowing from his body, the same body that had been raised upon a pyre, very white and strangely small amidst the stack of wood. Many of the citizens of Whiterun and all of the Companions were arrayed around it; Ria was openly sobbing already, and Athis had his arm around her shoulder to comfort her. The companionable touch only made her sob harder, however, and her sniffles echoed in the silence. Velwyn stood next to Tilma, scrubbed clean and with his hair carefully combed and slicked down, mouth trembling a little. Even Carlotta Valentia and her daughter Mila were in attendance, Carlotta with her arm hooked through Farkas', her fingers stroking the big man's arm lightly while he looked sadly at the pyre. Sigrid took her place in the half-ring around the grave, unable to take her eyes from it. Kodlak looked so old, so small. None of the vitality and dignity that he had possessed in life remained in death: his face was drawn, still grimacing in pain despite the best efforts of the Companions who had stood vigil over him and prepared his corpse for the funeral rites.

"Who will start?" Eorlund asked, sweeping a look over the warriors.

"I will," Aela said, her stoic face set as she moved forward, torch in hand. Her voice was steady as she intoned the ancient words that were repeated every time a Companion passed, whether or not there was enough of a body to recover and burn. The solemn call-and-response of the mourning ritual dated back to Ysgramor's grief for his sons, eras of Companions murmuring them through the ages when their comrades fell. "Before the ancient flame…"

"We grieve," Sigrid said, along with the rest of the Companions. The words came numb on her tongue, though she remembered saying them for Skjor.

"At this loss…" Eorlund said, taking up the refrain, as he too stepped forward.

"We weep," Sigrid muttered along with the chorus.

"For the fallen…" Vilkas said, voice thick with grief.

"We shout."

"And for ourselves…" said Farkas.

"We take our leave."

On the last murmured refrain, Aela moved forward and lowered the torch, holding it there while it set the tinder aflame, and then the wood atop it. The fire roared to life, catching and burning, as the hungry flames licked upwards to grab at Kodlak's body. Human flesh took longer to burn than wood, and the smell of it was indescribable. It would take several hours for the old man's body to reduce itself to ashes.

"His spirit is departed," Aela said, voice carrying clear as a bell over the silence of the crowd. "Members of the Companions, let us withdraw to Jorrvaskr, to celebrate Kodlak's life and grieve our last together."

As she prepared to follow the others downstairs, Eorlund put a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up in surprise. The old man lowered his voice as he asked her, "Do you have the fragments of Wuuthrad still? I'll need to prepare them for mounting again."

"Yes," Sigrid said, and handed him the carefully-wrapped package. "I return them with honor."

"Hah!" Eorlund said, a short bark of a laugh. "Don't get too flowery on me, lass. And I do have a small favor to ask of you—there's another piece that Kodlak always kept close to himself. Would you bring it back to me? I'm not sure I'm the one who should go through his things."

"And you think I am…?" Sigrid asked, surprised.

"He liked you," Eorlund shrugged. "And you bore the rest of the fragments this far."

"Of course I'll retrieve it for you," Sigrid said.

"Thank you. I'll be here, tending to the Harbinger's flame."

Jorrvaskr was already ringing with the typical funeral rites: after the solemn burning of Kodlak's body, the rest of the Companions would spend the rest of the day drinking and telling tales of the Harbinger's life. With such a full span of years, Kodlak's wake would run well into the night. All of the men and women of the mead hall had loved him, as children loved a father, and the mourning was both a celebration of his particular spirit and a terrible expression of communal grief. But Sigrid skirted around the celebration, muttering that she would return as soon as she had gone to see Eorlund once more, and went down to the Living Quarters and Kodlak's rooms.

They were just as he had left them, the sheets of his bed thrown back, the books and plans he had so carefully compiled over the years still spread over his table. The Silver Hand had not penetrated so far into the Living Quarters, and nothing below the stairs had been damaged. She had no idea where the Harbinger would have hidden a fragment of Wuuthrad—it did not seem to be in the display cases that held Kodlak's trophies, weapons he had taken from the men he'd slain over the years. She searched his desk, but there was nothing. The wardrobe held only clothes. She avoided touching the daedra heart on a plate, shuddering a bit at the black lightning that seemed to ripple through the red, even now. Eventually, she pulled open a drawer of his end table and found both a slim folded oilcloth that, when she drew it out, seemed to have some sort of metal in it, and a brown leather journal.

First she opened the package and found within it a shard of some kind of dark metal. _Ah, the fragment_. She set it aside on the bed, and then sat down next to it, hesitating, before she opened the journal and saw Kodlak's scrawled handwriting:

_THE JOURNAL OF KODLAK WHITEMANE, HARBINGER OF THE COMPANIONS, IN HIS SIXTIETH YEAR_, _4E 201_

She should put the journal back into the drawer. She _should_ put it back… but she couldn't.

Though she would never admit it to anyone, Sigrid often had a very difficult time reading. Her father had been barely literate himself, and they'd had no use for books in their little wooden cabin. He could cipher his numbers well enough to ensure he wasn't being ripped off in trade, but she had had to learn to read at the ripe old age of fifteen. Shamar had attempted to teach her, anyway, but she had been a slow study. The letters often seemed to rearrange or mix themselves before her eyes, even as she tried to decipher them. Even now, she had to struggle to make sense of words on a page, and it took her longer than it should have to decipher Kodlak's writing, at least the words of it she could understand. _In my dream, I see the line of Harbingers start with Ysgramor_, she read, Kodlak's labored script detailing his dreams of the past Harbingers and the great choice that had led to their doom. She knew that she should not read a dead man's private thoughts, but an insatiable curiosity gripped her. Though she knew she should put the book back into the drawer where she had left it, she read on. _It appears I have a choice. And then, at my side, a stranger I had not seen before. As I look into her eyes, we turn to see the same wolf who dragged away Terrfyg, and she and I draw weapons together_… Sigrid frowned at the tale; it had obviously gripped Kodlak strongly enough to bring him to words. She read more of his struggles with bringing the Circle around to the idea of the cure, and sighed as she read: _Vilkas seemed most troubled. The boy is as fierce as a sabre cat in battle, but his heart's fire burns too brightly at times_. Sigrid sighed: Kodlak was truly a wise man, almost too wise, at times.

The more she read, the more uneasy she became, however. She mouthed the words as she read: _While Vilkas was confiding, through the shadows of Jorrvaskr, I saw a newcomer approach, who wished to join our numbers. It was the stranger from my dream, the one who would stand with me against the beast_… As she carefully read the paragraph, Sigrid recognized the day that he wrote of and realized, with a shock, that it was the day _she_ had come to Jorrvaskr. Kodlak had been talking about _her_. Dreaming about _her._ The book slipped from her fingers, falling into her lap as she stared at the wall of the Harbinger's room. Too many dreams and prophecies; too many futures involving her. The enormity of it all hit her like a war hammer, leaving her breathless. With trembling fingers, she picked up the journal again, and continued to read Kodlak's private thoughts, chewing at her lip every time she saw her name. _This newcomer, it seems, is made of decent stock. She calls herself Sigrid, and has already impressed some of the Circle… Sigrid continues to impress… Sigrid shows valor, though, even in this more underhanded time. We have not had cause to speak much and that is something that I deeply regret. I have high hopes for her destiny, as I realized her appearance in my dream may indeed mark her as the Harbinger to succeed me…_

The book fell again from her fingers, dropped in sheer and utter shock. She could not have been more surprised if Kodlak had suddenly jumped from behind the bed and begun dancing a jig across the room. He thought that _she_ was fit to be the Harbinger? No one had believed in her like that, so honestly and without reservation. Not since her father's passing. Through the years she had fought filthy and not always honorably across the continent, barely scraping by a living for herself, always running, barely holding onto her pride. And Kodlak, the greatest warrior in Whiterun, had seen something in her. Some kernel of honor that had remained hidden from everyone else. Some potential for greatness, even before she had been declared the Dragonborn, made into a ridiculous legend come to life. He saw _her_—the innermost part of her—and he thought her worthy. She almost could not begin to read again: _I have received few dreams over the course of my life, but when they come, I have learned to trust them. I have also learned to trust the instincts of my heart, which tells me that Sigrid can carry the Companions legacy as truly as any residing in Jorrvaskr, especially with the loss of Skjor. Aela is too solitary, Vilkas too fiery, and Farkas too kind-hearted. Only Sigrid stands as a true warrior who can keep a still mind amidst these burning hearts. _Only she was—? Sigrid read the sentences once, twice, to make sure she had not misread them, brushing her free hand roughly across her eyes, which had suddenly, inexplicably begun to fill with water.

_I will not speak to her of any of this, though. It is too much to burden another with. My hope is that she and I can keep counsel over the coming years, that I can impart the wisdom of the Harbingers… _The tears were falling in earnest now, something that had not happened since she'd found her father in the snow. They were ugly tears, hot and begrudging, years of emotions tamped down suddenly escaping in a moment of weakness. She cried for Kodlak, and for the missed opportunity to know him, to _truly_ know him the way that Vilkas had done, for the loss of the years he could have taught her his wisdom, and she cried for her father, for he was not here to see what could have been, knowing how proud he would have been of her. And she cried for her failure, for the loss of whatever tenuous emotions had been between her and the Master of Arms before Kodlak's death, and for whatever strange new thing had grown in her chest since the terrible fight on the way to Driftshade. But she could only allow herself the indulgence of that emotion for a few moments, for she had already dallied long enough reading Kodlak's journal. The shameful tears came still, leaving her gasping and coughing in the silence of the Harbinger's room.

Wiping her eyes and taking a deep breath, Sigrid slipped the journal reverently back into the end table, her fingers lingering on the drawer for the barest of moments. And then she picked up the wrapped fragment, and stood from the bed to take it back to Eorlund.

"Ah, you've returned," the smith said, when she handed him the wrapped cloth.

"Here you go, Eorlund. That should be all of the fragments. Will you place them back in their pride of place?"

"Hmm," Eorlund said, in a surprisingly noncommittal way. Sigrid did not question him further. The man could snap if asked the wrong questions, growling at an unwary questioner. No, he would tell her in his time. The smith raised an eyebrow at her, examining her face with far too keen an insight. "Well, girl? Go on. They'll be missing you." He paused. "And clean your damn face. Anyone'd think you'd been crying."

"Crying? No. That's just the black eye. And don't you bloody dare say that again; I've killed men for less," she said, and turned away from him. He knew the remark was a not serious, and though his eyebrows shot up again in surprise, he waved her on.

It was time to rejoin the wake, but she could not quite bring herself to face the other Companions. _To face Vilkas, don't fool yourself, woman_. Not if her face so obviously betrayed her. Instead of going in, she sat on the front stairs of the mead hall with her head in her hands, staring wordlessly off at Whiterun spread below her. She heard footsteps behind her, and looked up, startled out of her reverie. Farkas came strolling across the porch, and sat down next to her without a word. They sat there for a long time in silence, and she realized she must have looked worse than she thought, for he put his arm around her shoulder, a comforting, strong weight. In other years, another Sigrid would have pulled away from him, slapped his hand away. Instead, she leaned into the big man's side, allowing herself to lean on him, on his strength.

"Shouldn't you be inside mourning?" she said, then snorted a dry laugh, remembering another night when he'd come outside to speak to her during a funeral. "We've got to stop meeting like this."

"Be mourning all day," Farkas said with a shrug. "You all right?"

"Yes," she said, then, "No. Ask your brother."

"All right," he said calmly, but did not move his arm away.

Inside, someone broke had broken something. They could hear the shatter of it on the wooden floors, and a scream of laughter. The wake had begun in earnest, then. Still, he made no move to go and join them, and she did not shove his arm away.

"Farkas?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you, brother."

"'Course."

They sat in a companionable silence, watching the bustling of Whiterun below them, unaware of the true extent of the Companions' loss, of their grief. The warmth of his simple gesture was infectious, and she sighed, and realized she had forgotten the _shield_ part of her address to him. He had not noticed, or had not cared.

"Come inside, sister," he said, after a moment. "Rejoin the living, huh?"

"Yes," she said. "It's time."

* * *

><p>Vilkas watched his mentor's body burned, overwhelmed with memories of his life at Jorrvaskr. The first day he had gotten up the courage to speak to Kodlak. The day that Kodlak had presented him with his first sword, and told him it was not just a weapon, it was his livelihood, and that he should guard it with his life. Kodlak offering him words of advice after the first, horrible transformation, when he had been overwhelmed by the wolf. Kodlak searching for the cure. All of the conversations that he should have had with the old man, about Sigrid and families and responsibility, but that he watched burn up with the smoke. Though the other Companions retired to Jorrvaskr after Aela finished the ceremony, Vilkas remained on the balcony, watching until Kodlak's pyre burnt itself out, until he could help Eorlund gather the ashes, to be scattered into the White River later on that night. Only then did he go down the steps of the Skyforge and into Jorrvaskr, where the wake was already in full swing. He scanned the Companions quickly, and frowned when he saw that Sigrid was not among their number.<p>

Even if she avoided him, it was unlike her to miss Kodlak's funeral rites. She had loved the old man in her own way, that much he could tell at the funeral, surreptitiously watching her face as she stared into the fire. No matter. He sat down, in between Aela and Farkas, and poured himself a glass of ale, the first of many that night. As with Skjor's funeral only a few months before, the atmosphere was a strange combination of melancholy and raucousness. The stories about Kodlak's fabled life could not be done justice by words, especially not by this group of puppies, many of whom had only known him for a few years of their lives. Vilkas found himself not sharing so much as he listened and drank, drowning his sorrows in sour ale and occasionally a glass of honeyed mead to break the monotony.

At some point Farkas disappeared from the table, out into the grounds, and was gone for a good half an hour at least. When he returned, with Sigrid at his side, Vilkas glared at his brother, who merely met the look with an impenetrably calm smile and took his seat at his twin's side once more. Sigrid sat across the table from them, and he could see in the candlelight that her bruised face was puffy and swollen, almost as if she'd been crying. _Sigrid doesn't cry_, he thought, and then frowned. The evidence was there. It just didn't make sense. Maybe another drink would help it along.

"I remember when I first joined the Companions," Athis said fondly. "Skjor didn't think a dark elf had a place in Jorrvaskr, but Kodlak stood his ground. _What matters is the valor in his heart, not the color of his skin or the race of his parents_, he said. And Skjor backed down. He was a good man, our Kodlak."

"Hear, hear!" Torvar exclaimed.

"When he took me out on my first mission," Njada cut in, her drawling voice clear even in the noise of the hall, "he didn't even reprimand me for not being able to keep a civil tongue in my head. He merely said, there's a time and a place for that, my girl."

"Kodlak liked to see us practice-fight. When we were lads. I mean," rumbled Farkas. "Vilkas and I, I mean. He'd laugh, and laugh."

"Laughing _at_ you, ice-brains," Aela said fondly, and then stood. "Kodlak saved my mother's life, many a time. Even on the day that she was finally taken down by a lucky blade, he made sure he brought her body home so that it could be burned in state on the Skyforge. And he personally came to my father's cottage to inform us of her passing." Her green eyes were distant, remembering that day well. "And he said, _Aela, girl, it's a hard life, if you're to follow your mother. If you wish to do it, now is your time. There must always be a Huntress among the Companions. _And I took his hand and I said I was ready, and thus I came to Jorrvaskr."

The tales went on and on. Kodlak was the best man, the best leader a warrior could ever hope to have. He had had a sense of humor, a sense of honor, and the wisdom of years. They would never again see his like, Vilkas thought morosely. He had read enough of the Companions history and the dark years of the Second Era to know how truly lucky they had been to have him for as long as they did. Each Companion had innumerable stories, epic and mundane, and unsurprisingly it was the everyday tales of Kodlak's kindness and humor that hit him the hardest. Even Tilma had a story about the day that Kodlak was caught stealing a sweetroll from the kitchen, and was punished just as she would have punished Vilkas or Farkas as a boy: smacking him over the palm with a wooden soup ladle. The image of old Tilma chastising the legendary Harbinger of the Companions caused waves of hilarity to spread through the group, some of whom had not heard the story at all. Velwyn sat perched on a chair, his eyes wide, muttered exclamations of _wicked! _escaping him with especially epic stories. As the night went on, though, his head gradually drooped down, until he was sleeping on the table, and Tilma, her arms surprisingly strong for one so old, picked him up and carried him off to bed.

They toasted him with songs, they toasted him with stories, they toasted him with simple words. A thousand years could not do justice to what Kodlak had meant to them. Could not assuage the loss. Sigrid watched it all with sad gray eyes, and when it was her turn to share a memory, she simply said, studiously avoiding looking at him, "When I came to Jorrvaskr, Kodlak believed in me when no one else did. The respect of a warrior like him means everything. That's all. I was honored to know him." And she sat back down in her seat, her finger absently tracing the wood grain on the table.

At some point they had reached the time of the night when Njada took out her fiddle, playing first a sad funereal ode to their fallen leader, her eyes closed and lips pressed together thinly, her hands vibrating with feeling. All around the hall the Companions had their fists pressed to their hearts, eyes closed. Athis, who had a pleasant tenor singing voice, accompanied her with the words to the song: _and may his soul make its way across the bridge of bone, to Sovngarde and his eternal, valorous home, _and Vilkas was struck anew with guilt that Kodlak would never yet see Sovngarde, despite the fact that he had finally found the answers. The thought of him in Hircine's realms, an eternal plaything for a Daedric prince, wrenched his heart so much so that he poured another mug of ale, which he would have downed in several gulps if Farkas had not taken it away with a pointed look.

"I'll take my leave for the night," Vilkas said gruffly, and stood up more quickly than he had intended. The chair scraped back against the ground loudly, awkwardly, but his footsteps were steadier than he felt as he made his way downstairs, where he fell into bed still clothed, staring at the ceiling. From the calm surety he'd felt but a few days earlier, his whole world had suddenly been turned upside-down. He would soldier through, as he had done with everything else in his life, but… _Gods damn it_.

He did not know how long that he lay there, going over all of the things he had done wrong, the things he would need to fix in the coming days if someone was to keep the Companions going. Even if Kodlak's final wishes could not be honored, there were other things he would have to do. A tentative knock as his door startled him out of his reverie. "Come in," he said, and sat up sharply in surprise as he saw Sigrid in the doorway. "I had not thought to find you here." Perhaps earlier in the evening he might have thrown her out, for her own good, but drunkenness had mellowed him enough so that he gestured her in.

"Vilkas," she said, as she shut the door behind him, crossed the room slowly, as though she expected him to snap at her. "I—look. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. When I told you I was doing Kodlak's bidding, I was. I—"

"Stop, Sigrid," he said, and gestured for her to sit. She did, on the edge of his bed with as much comfort and confidence as though nothing had happened between them since the last time she'd been there, and in the bottom of his frustrated chest, he loved her for it. "You don't need to explain. I—I allowed my grief to overpower me. What I said to you in the Pale was—it was unforgivable."

"Well, I did punch you in the face for it already," she muttered, looking away.

"And I deserved it," he said, and the smile she flashed at him then was breathtaking—the kind of grin that totally transformed her ugly face into something radiant.

"You did," she agreed, "but you gave as good as you got."

"I'm a damn Companion," he said, "that's what we _do_." He extended a hand to her, and she shifted along the edge of the bed, closer to him, but not quite touching. "Look… all of the things I said to you… I was furious at myself, most of all. For not being able to save him. For allowing that man to smash my arm into so many broken bones. I…" Even with the alcohol to loosen his tongue, the words did not come easily. "If you could forgive me, we…"

"Vilkas, is that an _apology_?" she drawled. "Because it certainly doesn't _sound_ like—" When he turned a furious (if slightly bleary) glare at her, she laughed, and he had never heard a more welcome sound than that snicker. "All right. All right, I won't push my luck. Of course I forgive you, you bloody _moron_."

"Moron?" he said, affronted.

"This all could have been avoided if you'd just listened to me from the beginning!"

"Maybe I am," he said. "And maybe whatever it was can still wait until the morning, we have some catching up to do—"

"It really, really can't," she said, holding him off with a hand pressed against his chest. "Kodlak sent me to the Glenmoril coven."

"The Glenmoril…?" his mouth hung open in shock, recognizing the name from the day many months before, when Kodlak had told him the truth of the Companions' changes.

"The witches of Glenmoril," she said. "He believed that their heads—the seat of their power—can cure lycanthropy, if taken to Ysgramor's tomb."

"And you—" he remembered now, that she had been carrying a bloody sack when she came back into the hall. "_You have a bag of witch heads._"

"Yes," she said, not a little smugly. "We can cure ourselves, at least… even if it may be too late for Kodlak."

"You frustrating, wonderful _woman. _Come here."

And she came to him, throwing her arms around his waist in a sudden impulsive, affectionate gesture as she whispered sweetly into his ear: "Don't fucking do that to me again, though, or I'll castrate you."

He was laughing even as he bore her down to the bed. "Oh, Sigrid. I did miss you…"


	33. Glory

**AN: **Thanks for the reviews, favorites, etc. :) Especially Dandy and burningsea, the romance is the hardest part to write, so I'm glad it's both sweet and frightening, haha.

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><p><em>Let the warriors here in the hall come forth,<br>Thine and mine, for the need is mighty._

—The Poetic Edda, from _Sigurtharkvitha en Skamma, _translated by Henry Adams Bellows

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><p>He was already awake when she opened her eyes in the morning, though he had been lost in thought, considering a problem that had been bothering him since they had lit Kodlak's funeral pyre, a problem that he now suspected might be solvable. The <em>might<em> was the thing that troubled him, but it was easy to forget when she was shifting against him like a contented cat with a yawn and a stretch of her muscular arms.

"Good morning," she said, voice rough with sleep and the remnants of ale.

"So you're finally awake," he said, "Good."

"Why, are you in a hurry to leave?" she said, teasing him even as she rubbed the crust from her eyes.

"Yes and no," he said. "The Circle will meet in the Underforge later this morning to discuss how to move forward from our loss." It was almost as though the terrible things that had passed between them after Kodlak's death had never happened. Almost. He could still feel the shame of it beneath his skin, like a bruise.

She propped herself up on her elbow, frowning at him. "In what way? What can I do to help?"

"Well… among other things, Kodlak did not leave provisions or instructions for a new Harbinger before he died," Vilkas told her. "It's Companions' tradition that the old Harbinger chooses the new, but that doesn't seem to be possible right now." He looked a little more sharply at her face, for she had glanced down looking almost _guilty_, though for what reason, he could not have imagined. Shame and guilt, like tears, were not expressions he was used to seeing on her face. "But there's not time to discuss the rest of it now. I've dallied too long here. Meet me at the Underforge when you've washed and dressed. And dress appropriately for a journey in the cold."

"The cold? Spring's coming."

"Not as far north as I suspect we're going," he replied.

"All right, then. I won't be long," she said, and then smiled as he leaned forward to kiss her, her fingers trailing along his arm as he rose from the bed.

Vilkas dressed quickly, hurriedly, in appropriately warm clothes and armor, the fur-lined shirts and breeches beneath his wolf armor, the hood that could be pulled over his head in case of snow or a high wind. There was no guarantee that Aela would agree to go along with the plan, but if she did not, he was determined to do it alone if need be. It would be the least that he could do for Kodlak in return for all the old man had given him: a home and a family, a moral compass, someone to aspire being. He could still remember trailing the Harbinger around as a boy, when he wasn't much taller than Velwyn, as though by watching the way he ate and the way that he walked, he too could become a great warrior. Farkas had laughed himself sick when he saw his brother attempting to ape Kodlak's confident stride (his legs were nowhere near long enough to pull it off convincingly) but that hadn't stopped him. When he made up his mind about something, it was difficult to derail him, and that was why he approached the Underforge with confidence, despite the fact that he had no idea how to gauge Aela's reaction, what it would be. Farkas, he knew, would follow him into Oblivion. Sigrid, maybe not so far, but she would go where he asked.

His brother and Aela were already waiting by the time he made it to the Underforge, Farkas still rubbing at his eyes like a sleepy child. Aela was tense, knowing what would come. "Good morning, shield-brothers," she said.

Farkas grinned at her, despite the fact that the other two were not smiling. "Mornin', Aela."

"Why have you called this meeting?" Aela asked. "The old man is _dead_. All we have to discuss is how we will choose the next Harbinger."

"That's not all we have to discuss, shield-sister," Vilkas said.

"What else _is_ there?" Aela demanded. "He's gone. His ashes were scattered to the wind on the river."

The door of the Underforge, with its grinding of hidden gears in the stone, slid open and Sigrid stepped through. She was dressed as he was: furs peeking from beneath the bones of her armor, newly cleaned after their disaster in the Pale. Though she nodded a greeting to the three Companions, she did not interrupt, but took her place silently in the ring of the Circle, between the two brothers. He went on. "The old man had one wish before he died. And he didn't get it. It's as simple as that," Vilkas said, voice blunt as a dull blade.

"Being moon-born is not so much of a curse as you might think, Vilkas," Aela said, arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against the wall. Though the words were said casually, almost carefully, he could hear the steel behind them. She was defensive, knowing that of the Circle, she was the only one who did not wish to cleanse herself of the blood. Defensive, and strangely lonely. "And it's not as though it matters, anyway—Vilkas, he's _gone._"

"That's fine for you," Vilkas said fiercely, wanting her to understand what this meant to Kodlak—what it meant to all of them. "But _he _wanted to be clean. He wanted to meet Ysgramor and know the glories of Sovngarde, but all that was taken from him."

"And you avenged him!" Aela retorted. "Isn't that enough? What more can we do now that he's gone?"

"Kodlak did not care for vengeance," Farkas interrupted, a frown heavy on his forehead.

"No, Farkas, he didn't. And that's not what this is about," Vilkas said. "We should be honoring Kodlak, no matter our own thoughts on the blood." He focused his gaze on Aela, his level gray meeting her green, an echo of the battle for dominance they had hashed out in their wolf forms, those weeks ago on the plains. Eventually, she looked away first.

Aela was silent for a long while, and though Sigrid looked as though she was tempted to say something, the woman precluded the need. She exhaled, and as though it pained her to admit it, muttered grudgingly, "You're right. It's what he wanted, and he deserves to have it."

"Kodlak used to speak of a way to cleanse his soul even in death," Vilkas said, musing. He had mentioned it once, briefly, but even the Harbinger himself had not possessed the details. "I don't know if it's probable, or even possible, but it's worth a try. You know the legend of the tomb of Ysgramor? There the souls of the Harbingers will heed the call of northern steel. But we can't enter the tomb without Wuuthrad, and it's in pieces, like it has been for a thousand years." _Though I mean to try anyway_, he thought, _if it means I have to break down the stone walls myself._

They had been so preoccupied with the conversation that no one noticed the groan of the door, not until a voice followed it. "And dragons were just stories," Eorlund Gray-Mane said, his strong voice carrying in the quiet of the Underforge. As he took his first steps into the room, Vilkas could see that in his hands he held an oil-cloth wrapped package the size of a weapon. "And the elves once ruled Skyrim. Just because something _is_, doesn't mean it must be. The blade is a weapon. A tool. And tools are meant to be broken. And repaired."

"Is that…?" Vilkas trailed off, amazed, as he stared at Eorlund's hands. "Did you repair the blade?"

"I worked through the night to reforge it. This is the first time I've had all the pieces, thanks to our shield-sister here," Eorlund said, and let the oilcloth fall away, revealing the legendary weapon itself. It gleamed in the torchlight, all dark metal stained over the years with the blood of innumerable elves. The screaming face in the center of the curving blade stared out at them, unblinking and unchanging. And the heavy dark wood haft had been polished and freshly oiled. "The flames of a hero can reforge the shattered; the flames of Kodlak shall fuel the rebirth of Wuuthrad. And now it will take you to meet him once more." Eorlund extended the blade to Sigrid, who hesitated before she took it in her hands, her fingers curled around the haft of the axe. "As the one who bore the fragments, I think you should be the one to carry Wuuthrad into battle. The rest of you should begin preparing for the journey to the tomb of Ysgramor. For Kodlak!" he cried.

"For Kodlak," the Circle echoed, as Eorlund nodded sharply, and then stalked from the room as abruptly as he had come.

"Well," Aela said dryly, "I suppose that decides _that_ question for us." She glanced at Sigrid and Vilkas, both dressed for the colder climes of the north, and her mouth turned down at the corner. "If you hadn't been as surprised as I was when Eorlund came in here with the axe, I'd have say you planned this, shield-brother."

"I planned to go with or without you," he said honestly. "But I'd rather have you at my side, Aela."

She smiled at that. "And I to be at your side, shield-brother. Give Farkas and I some time to prepare, and we will leave soon after." And she stalked from the Underforge, to gather her armor and any supplies, for they would have to camp at least one night in the open. After a moment, Farkas followed, leaving Vilkas and Sigrid alone by the stone fountain, still stained with blood.

She hefted Wuuthrad experimentally, and then glanced at him with a small grin on her face. "I hope no one expects me to actually have to _wield_ this monster," she muttered. "I'm almost useless with two-handed weapons."

He laughed at the chagrin on her face. "No. I have only seen the outside ruins of the tomb itself, but there is a lock mechanism that fits the axe. You use your own sword and shield. I know for you the shield is almost a second weapon itself."

"Thank Ysmir," she muttered, then glanced at him sidelong. "You really would have gone alone?"

"If necessary, yes."

"You really thought I'd _let_ you go alone?" she asked, the brow over her black eye, now more purple and yellow than anything, raised.

"After Driftshade…"

"Vilkas, no. No matter what had happened between us, I'd do this for Kodlak. I have to," she said, a curiously determined frown on her lips. "Give me a few moments, as well. I need to figure out a way to balance Wuuthrad and twenty pounds of witch heads on my back."

He had already sorted out his own supplies, and so he waited for the rest of the Circle to join him on front steps of the mead hall. The day he had feared and dreaded and anticipated for so long—the discovery of a cure—was upon him, and he did not know how to feel about it. A confused roil of emotion stormed in his chest, and all he knew for sure is that he was glad he was not doing this alone. When the Circle came to fight side-by-side, there was no force on Tamriel that could hold them back. Sigrid came first, the stained sack strapped to her back, over the haft of Wuuthrad, slung over her shoulders. She looked like an especially grumpy pack mule, and he grinned, despite himself. She scowled in response and made a rude gesture with her right hand.

"Now is one of those times I really think horses are a worthwhile investment," she drawled, as she saw Aela and Farkas emerge from the Jorrvaskr depths—Farkas was equally burdened by the frames of the tent they would use for shelter.

"Ready, brother?" Farkas asked.

"We're ready," he said. "Let's go."

This journey had a different quality, already, from the one they had made to the Hall of the Vigilant. Though he had no idea whether they would be able to cure Kodlak's spirit, Farkas seemed to believe there was no question at all about their chances of success. Consequently, his brother was in quite a cheerful mood, and nothing Vilkas could say would dissuade him from believing it. Eventually, as they passed the Loreius Farm, Aela finally took pity on Farkas. "Look, Vilkas, you're the entire reason we're heading North to the tomb. The least you can do is give him the benefit of optimism."

"I just don't want him to be disappointed," Vilkas insisted.

They were not making good time. Sigrid insisted on pausing their journey so that she could convince Vantus Loreius to help a strange little man dressed as a jester whose carriage had thrown a wheel. The other Companions remained on the road with him as they watched Sigrid jogging up to the farm, the bloody sack on her back, and Aela remarked dryly that it was a wonder the farmer hadn't called the guards on her himself. Though he did not say anything while they still stood near the man, he did not like him. There was something _off_ about him, the stench of madness that could not be cleaned no matter how well he scrubbed, something a little too bright in his eyes. And his mother's corpse also smelled wrong—he could catch the scent even through the wooden box—leathery and floral, not "recently departed" at all. He kept a stern eye on the little man while Sigrid negotiated in the distance with the farmer, warning him without words that no funny business would be tolerated. To his great annoyance, the jester seemed completely unfazed, and spent most of the wait giggling and chattering constantly about nonsense.

Vilkas had rarely been more relieved when Sigrid returned to tell them that Loreius had agreed to help, because he was about three heartbeats away from caving this Cicero's head in with his fist. The jester's effusive, almost hysterical thanks did not help matters, and he raised an eyebrow at Sigrid as they continued on their way. "What the hell was that about?" he demanded, once they were out of earshot.

"I just didn't think it was a good omen to refuse to help someone on _this_ particular journey," she said sheepishly.

"I didn't think you were superstitious."

"I'm not. But enough strange things have happened over the last few months that, well…"

"Sigrid's right," Farkas said decisively. "Kodlak would've helped."

"Glad to see the back of that one," Aela said, glancing over her shoulder as they walked. "He smells sick, like a rabid fox." And just like that, he realized she had put her finger on it exactly.

There were no further delays that four Companions couldn't handle, at least not on the first leg of the journey. The occasional wolf or bear lunged from the shadows, but with Aela's arrows between its eyes and Farkas' sword to back up the quarrels, there was barely a fight in any of it. After a while, Aela grew bored with the tame travel and the lack of conversation, scouting further and further ahead, looping back to inform them when she'd seen anything of interest and then ranging out again. Vilkas found that he enjoyed traveling with his brother and the woman: it pleased him to see that at some point in her time at Jorrvaskr, they had developed an easy, comfortable repartee, with Sigrid responding solemnly to some of Farkas' more outlandish statements, and Farkas occasionally tossing off a remark to her that made her tilt her head, trying to figure out, as so many people did, whether there was another layer of meaning to the words, or whether his dumb innocence was not an act. Though he had not thought about what he would have done had they _not_ gotten along, it was still a strange burden from his shoulders to see it. Perhaps even a few weeks ago, he might have been jealous, but for whatever reason now, he found it fitting.

The four of them pitched camp not far from Fort Dunstad, for none of the Circle were eager to trespass on the hospitality of the Imperials that likely still garrisoned it. With four of them working together, however, the camp was a matter easily finished in a short amount of time. They did not light a fire, but instead shared cold pheasant breast and slices of hard cheese and bread before retiring to the bedrolls for the night. Aela took the first watch, and Farkas took up an entire, specially made roll himself. Sigrid started the evening in a special bedroll, but when he woke to take his watch, he realized that at some point in her sleep, she'd rolled over and attached herself to his back, body aligning with his like spoons in a drawer, her arm thrown over his waist. He disentangled himself as gently as possible, so as not to wake her, but she grumbled in her sleep and attempted to grab hold of his breeches.

"Stop that," he hissed, and she opened one sleepy eye.

"Stop what?"

"_That_. You're going to wake Farkas."

Aela watched them in silent horror, and shook her head.

In the morning, they set off again, taking a shortcut through the mountains and heading northeast towards the Sea of Ghosts. The Tomb of Ysgramor itself was situated on a rocky island across a narrow channel of water from the cliffs that dropped down from the City of Winterhold, which they could avoid for now by taking a path Sigrid knew down the icy rocks. Vilkas found himself glad of the cold air that blew down from the mountains, and the faint smell of the sea in the distance that carried on the wind. It was midday, the wavering sun high above them, before they could see the sea in the distance, with the ice shifting, breaking with the slight warming of spring. This time, they discovered an abandoned rowboat at the edge of the Sea, its occupant, a fisherman of some sort, having been gored to death by the colony of horkers who watched them suspiciously. Aela bared her teeth at a younger horker that came too close, flopping its way along the ice.

"We should just take the boat," the Huntress said. "The water's most likely too cold to swim, and it's not as though its previous owner's going to have a use for it."

It was a risky venture to get the boat out into the water, though, with four armored warriors, and one of them Farkas. Sigrid and Vilkas pushed it out into the ice, and then jumped in quickly, as the rickety craft moved with a violent rock that threatened to tip all of them out into the chilly sea. "Hircine take this piece of _shit_!" Aela swore, clutching the sides of the boat as Farkas attempted to steady it with one oar.

Vilkas took the other oar, and together, the two brothers managed to steer the boat towards the correct island, after a few mishaps in which Farkas couldn't figure out which way he should be paddling and the boat spun in useless circles in the water, while Aela looked more than a little green and Sigrid covered her eyes with one hand in utter dismay. Vilkas, despite the gravity of the confrontation that they moved towards, found himself chuckling at the sheer absurdity of their current situation. Eventually, however, Farkas got the hang of the rhythm of rowing, and they managed to make it to the island without any further mishaps. As the boat ground up on the beach, they jumped one by one from its rickety wooden body, and began the ascent from the rocky edges of the land. The sea lapped around their boots, icy cold and unforgiving.

He led the way, having been here once before with Jergen. The man'd been trying to teach him some sort of lesson, now long-forgotten, about honor or responsibility. He remembered looking up at the stone face of Ysgramor, a sullen teenager still growing in his own skin while the beast grew beneath it. He had not returned since, until this moment, but he remembered the bowl-shaped depression in the earth and the stairs leading down as clearly as though it had been yesterday. The others followed, single-file down the stairs, silent and solemn. The enormity of what they were about to attempt had suddenly hit everyone, with the tomb here, the door opening.

Three doors split off from the main chamber, all of them blocked. In the antechamber, the great stone statue of Ysgramor stared down at them, judging and silent, the remnants of offerings that other Companions had left over the years at his feet, including the first dagger he had ever owned, left there from his trip with Jergen. Vilkas found that when he looked up at the man who was indirectly responsible for bringing them all together, he felt like a guilty teenager again, though this time his guilt was darker, more stained with blood. He pushed down the feeling and gestured for Sigrid to come to him. "Here, woman. Put Wuuthrad into his hands, and see whether that opens any doors."

She came forward, taking the axe from its sling on her back and holding it in her hands, more confidently than she looked. He could hear her heartbeat, hammering as intensely as a hummingbird's, and he could smell the metallic tang of—not fear, but trepidation. She was _nervous_, he realized, dreading something, though what, he could not tell. She stepped forward, and with a deep breath, slid the axe into Ysgramor's hands. With a grinding reminiscent of the stone-upon-stone in the Underforge, the door directly behind the statue slid open, revealing a cobwebbed tunnel that led downwards. Aela hissed _Ysgramor's balls! _And Farkas merely tilted his head, staring intently down into the depths.

"This is the resting place of Ysgramor and his most trusted generals… they will test you. You should be cautious," Vilkas said, looking into the long, dark tunnel, lit with a blue glow, and he knew. His heart was heavy: now that he looked down into the depths, he knew that he was not meant to enter them. Though it would bring him great honor to do so, though he wished for nothing more than to be the one to free Kodlak from the curse that had consumed his later years, he knew it was not to be. He thought of the rage that had gripped him of late, the wolf barely hidden below the surface, and of the way he had lashed out at Sigrid after the Harbinger had fallen, the betrayal and pain on her face when he'd thrown her father's death at her in anger, said the words she must have whispered to herself in the dark nights. And he thought, too, of the cold vengeance that he had wielded like a blade in Driftshade Refuge, killing emotionlessly, mechanically, to satisfy a hollow urge in his heart that even now could not be filled, a gaping void that took everything but never shrank. No. He was not clean. He had not acted honorably, and he did not deserve to go with them any further, to test himself against the Companions of old. He did not deserve the honor of freeing Kodlak from his chains. He did not deserve to rid _himself_ of the wolf.

"Are you not coming?" Sigrid asked, her hand on his wrist.

"Kodlak was right," Vilkas muttered, pulling away from her, so that she would not feel his heartbeat quicken, would not somehow sense the shame on him. If she was only half as aware of him as he was of _her_, it would all be plain to her. "I let vengeance rule my heart. I regret nothing of what we did at Driftshade. But I can't go any further with my mind fogged or my heart grieved."

"Vilkas," Sigrid said, again, and he could see the terrible hope on her face, a hope that was fading now. "If you don't come with us into the tomb, you won't be able to cure yourself."

He looked away from her, unable to bear the weight of her disappointment. "I'm not ready," he said. "Go on without me. I'll wait here for you to return."

"Are you sure?" she said, eyes and voice equally troubled.

"Yes," he said roughly, turning away from her. He could see Farkas glancing between them, curiously, as though only now realizing something he'd been trying to puzzle out for a long time. Vilkas ignored him, and ground out the word between his gritted teeth. "Go."

"Vilkas…" She did not say _please_, though he knew she was a moment away from it.

"_Go_," he growled, for he did not wish to hear her beg.

She stood watching him for an interminable moment, her jaw clenched, and at first he thought she would refuse him. But then she turned on her heel and stalked off into the darkness, followed by his brother, who looked over his shoulder once with a confused expression on his face, and Aela, graceful as ever, leaving Vilkas alone with Ysgramor's carved stone face and implacable arms. He watched them until their bodies were swallowed up by shadows, and even then, could not look away, as though if he did not break his gaze, she would come running back up from the depths to drag him down. After long moments, though, he realized that they were well and truly gone. With a faint groan of disappointment (in himself, in his own weakness), he sat down at Ysgramor's feet, and prayed that one day he would have the strength to follow them.

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><p>Sigrid forced herself not to look over her shoulder, to see whether he was still watching them, or whether he regretted having left. Warring emotions dueled in her heart, a strange sense of betrayal, that he would not wish to cure himself after all they had been through, and disappointment, that she would have to face whatever came at them without him. <em>I don't understand,<em> she thought. _This is what he's been working towards for so many months—this is _his _father-figure. Why won't he…? _When Vilkas got an idea in his head there was no dislodging it, and she'd been forced to give in to his stubborn refusal to go any further. Perhaps he was, in the end, frightened of having to give up the wolf? But she could not seriously imagine him being frightened of anything.

She pushed thoughts of him from her mind, and concentrated instead on leading the way down the tunnel, Aela and Farkas at her back. A skeever lunged for her, and she stamped down on its head with her boot, crushing it neatly to death. Another came sideways through the shadows, throwing itself at Farkas' leg, but a cleaving stroke of his sword cut it in two.

"Hah! Got you," he exclaimed, and they continued down the winding path, Sigrid eyeing the dragon carvings in the walls with trepidation.

"Hmm!" a ghostly voice echoed in the chamber, "Does someone live amongst the dead?" even as another crowed, "Death comes for you now!" The voices sounded as though they came from all sides, and it was not until the glowing blue, ethereal forms of the ghostly warriors emerged from the walls that she realized what they were facing. She was moving even before she could think, the shield snapping up to catch a surprisingly solid blow as she lashed out with her blade while the ghost's sword was down. It collapsed with a groan; behind her, she could hear Farkas' grunt of triumph as he took down the second ghost.

"That was _fun_," he said, with a grin. "Never fought anything glowin' like that, not even when we took down the mad mushroom licker."

"Do I even want to know?" Sigrid asked, as she moved forward cautiously towards a set of iron-banded doors that blocked the passage forward.

"He was a Breton necromancer," Aela said. "Who, ah, liked to lick the glowing mushrooms. So much so that he glowed. But not so brightly."

"I see I have much to learn," Sigrid said, as she pushed open the door with her shield. They found themselves now in a long chamber, lined with coffins. As the three warriors moved carefully down the stairs, Aela with her bow already out, an arrow knocked and the string pulled taut, more ghosts emerged from the walls, their creaky voices redolent of dust and time and creaking bones. Though the ghosts taunted the living, as Sigrid pivoted to catch a blow on her shield instead of her arm, it helped her to think of them not as acting from malice, but to recall Vilkas' words: this was a test. A matter of pride. _I'll show these old relics how a true warrior fights in the Fourth Era,_ she thought to herself, and then found that she was most likely the first woman in all of Tamriel to knee a ghost in the bollocks. She hadn't even known that ghosts _had _bollocks, let alone bollocks that could be kneed. But down the ghost went, gasping, and she stabbed it in the face as it fell. Behind her, Aela was firing arrow after arrow with deadly aim, taking down anything that came near her with a deadly efficiency. And Farkas—well, Farkas had thrown himself into the battle with glee, obviously enjoying himself, the greatsword cleaving a glowing blue woman in two, before she faded from this plane of existence.

More stairs down found them in a broad, wide room, the sunken floor flooded with water that moved to a breath of air she couldn't feel. Fires burned in the braziers at the edges of the chamber as more ghosts came for them. Sigrid splashed through the water, which came up only to her ankles, to meet a man in a horned helmet who grinned a ghostly smile as he lifted a bow to fire at her. The arrow punched her in the chest, though it could not penetrate her armor, she felt the impact. Apparently ghostly weapons could damage as well as lively ones. She began to notice, as she fought them, that though they were quick, fighting a ghost was not exactly the same as a live person. There was a certain predictability to their motions; when fighting sword to sword they began to repeat their parries and strikes in the same pattern, as though the imprints of their minds could only hold so much. After she figured that out it was fairly easy to block and strike, to find the moment of weakness when the reasoning of the spirit failed, and to take advantage. The glowing dust of her last foe vanished into the water below, and she and the two Companions went up the stairs to the chamber behind.

She could hear the shivering of legs behind the webs that blocked off the door, and shuddered. At the sight of gauzy-wrapped spider egg sacs, Farkas stopped abruptly and squinted at them. She could almost see the wheels turning in his head, as though he was making up his mind about something. He looked up and met Sigrid's eyes. "I can't go any further, shield-sister."

"What's the matter?" Sigrid asked, almost exasperated enough to ask _now_.

Farkas was still watching her with a painfully earnest expression. "Ever since Dustman's Cairn, the big crawly ones've been too much for me. Everyone has his weakness, but this is mine. I'm not proud, but I will stay back with Vilkas. Give my regards to Ysgramor," he added, a little regretfully. With anyone else, she might have taken the words at face value, but there was a shadow behind his eyes that she had not seen there before. _He's lying about _something_, _Sigrid thought, though she could not for the life of her figure out what it could be.

"All right, shield-brother…" she said doubtfully. "Go to him." She watched as Farkas nodded first to her, then to Aela, and turned on his heel, jogging back across the chamber from which they'd just entered. She could hear him splashing through the water. With a grunt, she turned to the Huntress. "Any last minute doubts you've got, Aela? Any fears you haven't told me of?"

"I have no doubts," Aela replied, green eyes glinting in the dim light, "and I fear only cages."

"Good," Sigrid said. "Let's move."

Together, they hacked at the webs until the thick film of sticky silk gave way beneath their blades. On the other side of the barrier, four frostbite spiders rushed at them, now that they were freed from their self-imposed prison. Aela was on them, pivoting gracefully as she used dual daggers to puncture their eyes, stab down through their heads. Sigrid took the stragglers, wincing as a projectile spittle of poison slapped her on the neck, burning and corrosive before she could bring the creature down. Another webbed door blocked their way, this time, she found a gigantic spider, almost as big as the one that had lurked within Bleak Falls Barrow. She had no compunctions with setting it on fire. Calling up the flames within herself, focusing on the heat and burn of it, she breathed, "_Yol toor!_" at the monster. It lit beautifully in the dark, panicking, as it ran flaming towards them. Aela's arrow in its skull was the final nail in the coffin, and it dropped in a mess of legs and blood. The little spiders around it rushed for them anyway, but they were so small and insignificant she could practically stomp them to death. At the other end of the chamber, Aela pulled a chain to open the door, leading down into the next section of the tomb, and more ghosts.

She was glad to have Aela at her side, through the last leg of the dungeon crawl. The woman was tireless, it seemed, and to watch her in action almost made Sigrid groan in envy. She moved with such economical grace of movement that it was almost surreal, crying, "For Kodlak!" as she went. The dungeon, as dungeons went, was fairly straightforward. Even the door, blocked by a gate, had a puzzle on a plinth at the end of the room, clear as day. More shades poured from the walls, crying _you are not welcome here_, and she met them in battle with a strange lightness of heart. She might not have been welcome here, in this winding tomb that smelled of dust and leather, the faint sweetness of rotten flesh that the years had not scrubbed away, but she was here on a mission, and these imprints of the past _would_ bow beneath her blade. For Kodlak's soul. For her own.

They finally broached what seemed to be the final chamber, a long tomb that yawned darkly above them. As Sigrid moved forward she could see that in the far end of the chamber, a coffin was enclosed by a grate. Could that be Ysgramor himself behind the bars? She shuddered, and for a moment, she could feel the weight of time in the tomb pressing down on her shoulders like a cold hand, but shook of the sensation and moved forward, Aela at her side. In the center of the room, a carved stone fountain glowed with blue flames. And at its side…

"Greetings, shield-sisters," Kodlak Whitemane said, as they approached him. Though shimmering and insubstantial, as the other ghosts had been, there was that indefinably _Kodlak_ quality about him: he was still all there, while the Companions ghosts they had been fighting through the tomb were mere echoes of their former selves.

"Kodlak? Is that you?" Sigrid asked, unable to believe it even so.

"Of course. My fellow Harbingers and I have been warming ourselves here. Trying to evade Hircine…"

She glanced around her, though she saw only Aela, and the glowing form of the Harbinger before her. "But there's nobody else here!"

"You see only me, because your heart only knows me as the Companions leader," Kodlak said with a small chuckle. "I'd wager old Vignar could see half a dozen of my predecessors. And I see them all—the ones in Sovngarde. The ones trapped with me in Hircine's realm. And _they_ see _you_. You've brought honor to the name of the Companions, Sigrid. We won't soon forget it."

Her throat had suddenly developed a lump in it, and she looked down again, lest he see that her lips had pressed together in an uncomfortable line. Instead, she focused on what she knew, what she had come for: "Vilkas said you can still be cured."

"Did he, now? I can only hope." He paced forward, eagerly: though his form was still shadowy and insubstantial, she could see his shoulders tense as he leaned forward. "You still have the witches' heads? Excellent. Toss one of them onto the fire. It will release their magic—for me, at least."

She shrugged the sack from its ties on her shoulder, and gagged a little as she opened the flap. The days had not been kind to the heads despite the fact that they had been traveling in cold climes. The stench that rose from it was vile, compounded of fish, and rotten eggs, and decaying flesh. Hagravens, alive, were not treat: dead, they were even worse. But she grabbed the head by the hair and walked with it to the fountain, took a deep breath (and instantly regretted it, as her nostrils flooded with the stench) and tossed the head into the blue flames. The stench was terrific; and she choked again, trying to keep down her meager meal from the night before.

At first, she wasn't sure whether anything had happened, whether it had worked. And then Kodlak's shade shuddered, groaning, and a huge form began to grow out of him, glowing red, a hulking shape that expanded upward out of the Harbinger as he struggled to free himself, tugging at the wolf as though mired in a swamp. With a snarl, the wolf lunged free, on all fours and without the distinctive shape that marked a werewolf, but larger than any wild lupine she had seen in the woods. The monster was almost as tall as she, and when it lunged for her, tackling her to the ground, as she held it off from ripping out her throat with her shield, the weight of it crushing. Aela cried, "For Kodlak!" once more, and sent an arrow flying into the beast—for a moment, Sigrid feared it might pass all the way through and strike _her_, but it stuck in transparent flesh, and the wolf roared, rearing, and that was enough for her to escape from beneath it. It was not like fighting a real wolf, which would have been easy. No, there was an almost human cunning to this spirit's feints and lunges, snapping at her heels and her legs. She cut it once, twice, and a lucky slash brought it to the ground, one leg 'crippled.'

"Now, shield-sister!" Aela cried, notching another arrow to her bow, in case.

She stabbed down, through the spirit's skull, and it collapsed, shuddered, and vanished in a hiss of ectoplasm.

"We've killed it? Kodlak! We've killed your beast spirit," Sigrid exclaimed. "Did it…?" If they had gone through all of this, only for it to fail… she did not know what she would do.

"And so slain the beast inside of me. I thank you for your gift," Kodlak said solemnly, as he inclined his head first to Sigrid, then to Aela.

"Please, Harbinger, don't thank me. It's the least we could…"

Kodlak held up his hand, to hold off her speech. "The other Harbingers remain trapped by Hircine, though. Perhaps from Sovngarde the heroes of old can join me in their rescue. The harrowing of the Hunting Grounds! It would be a battle of such triumph. And perhaps some day, you'll join us in that battle… but for today, return to Jorrvaskr. Triumph in your victory." And he paused for a moment, making some kind of final decision. When he looked up, his ghostly face was shining with confidence and a kind of fatherly pride. "And lead the Companions to further victory—Harbinger." And with that, he took several steps backward, his gaze flicking from Sigrid to Aela, one last look of those he had known in life, and he faded back into the shadows.

"Did I hear right?" Aela gasped. "Did he say you were to lead the Companions?"

Sigrid stood completely still. When Kodlak had said the word _Harbinger, _she had almost dropped her damn sword. It was one thing to read that he had been considering it when he had lived, but another to be proclaimed the leader of the Companions by his ghost. She didn't deserve this honor. She couldn't handle the responsibility. Vilkas should be the Harbinger—Aela should be the Harbinger—they had both been Companions for many years longer than she, had known Kodlak in their youth. She was not Harbinger material. She couldn't arbitrate matters of honor. What did she know of honor? What did she knew of glory? She knew the mud, she knew the blood, and she knew her blade. She _couldn't_… No. She could. She must. She remembered the words that Kodlak had written in his journal, and knew that though Vilkas would take the responsibility on his shoulders without complaint, that he would not want it—that he was happiest as he was. And Aela… "Does this upset you?" Sigrid asked the other woman. She could never quite tell what the Huntress was thinking, those lovely green eyes impenetrable as a wooded thicket.

"I'm just surprised," Aela said, honest and blunt as ever, with a shrug. "I'll be honest, I wouldn't have expected it, but that may just be because I remember you when you were a whelp begging to join. But the old man trusted you, so I'll trust you. And your strength and honor are obvious to all. I'm honored to be the first to address you as Harbinger."

"Don't call me that just yet… there's still one thing I yet must do," Sigrid muttered, and she crouched next to the sack and took one of the witch heads from it, the filthy hair oily beneath her fingers. She paused over the blue flames, oddly—she had not wanted the beast-blood, not truly, and she had been looking forward to the prospect of a cure. What now stayed her hand? A treacherous whisper in her blood. _This is what you want. Do not give it up. Keep the beast blood. You _need _it._ With a shudder, she threw the head into the flames and watched it burn—but only for a second, for a wrenching pain gripped her, and she cried out. It felt as though the very blood would be pulled from her body through her skin. It felt as though she were on fire. It felt as though some wild animal raked its claws through her skin. Sigrid fell to her knees as the glowing blue wolf spirit rose from her, and with it, a howl from both wolf and woman, though one was of rage, and one of pain. Weakly, she attempted to struggle to her feet. If Aela had not been there to confront the wolf spirit, to put an arrow through its eye and a dagger through its throat and ear, Sigrid was not sure how that fight would have gone. But through the pain of the spirit fighting to keep its hold on her body, she had the Huntress: a deadly flash of fur and steel.

The wolf shuddered, and died.

She could feel the sudden clarity that its death brought, as though a haze had been burned from before her eyes. The smells weren't as sharp and the colors dimmer, but she felt more like herself than she had in months, and even limping from the residual pain of it, she almost hugged Aela in her excitement. The Huntress, however, looked horrified, and took a step back, and Sigrid thought better of the impulsive gesture.

"Do you want me to…?" Sigrid said, glancing at the bag of the witch's heads. There were three of the precious things left: enough for all of the remaining Circle to be healed. "For you?"

Aela looked with evident revulsion at the bag. "_No_, shield-sister," she said. "I am moon-born, Hircine's child. And thus I will remain until I join my lord in the eternal Hunting Grounds."

Though Sigrid felt a strange sense of disappointment, of worry, for the Huntress, she said nothing, merely asked, "Are you going to accompany me back to Jorrvaskr?"

"Eventually. But this… this is the tomb of Ysgramor. I think I'm just going to commune for a bit," she said, tipping her head up to examine the wide chamber, a faint smile on her lips. "This place is worthy of some time. Go on ahead and let the others know what's happened here. I'll see you back there."

* * *

><p>Vilkas sat for what seemed like an interminably long time, alone with his thoughts. In reality it could not have been much more than an hour. But it seemed like forever, alone in the silence, alone with his troubled thoughts and his eternal doubts. He wondered how far into the tomb they had gotten, and whether it would even be possible to cure Kodlak's spirit in death. There were many things that he wondered, without any answers. With a snarl of frustration, Vilkas resisted the urge to sweep his fist across the statue's base, destroying the offerings, scattering them around the chamber. But he restrained himself. Somehow, he doubted that would not be a fair omen for the success of the mission. Suddenly, at the sound of familiar footsteps, he started. It was his brother, but his brother alone.<p>

Instantly, Vilkas was on his feet. "Farkas?" he demanded. "What happened? Why are you alone?"

"Don't worry, brother," said Farkas, as he stepped from the tunnel. "They were alive when I left them."

"So why in Oblivion aren't you with them?"

"Spiders," Farkas said, as though this explained everything.

"Spiders," Vilkas repeated.

"Yes."

"You're not serious."

"The big crawly ones. Can't stand 'em."

"You refused entry to the Tomb of Ysgramor," Vilkas said, disbelievingly. "You, my brother. Farkas of the Companions of Jorrvaskr. Turned back because of _spiders_?"

Farkas eyed him levelly for a long moment, and then shrugged. "Don't like 'em," he said. "Too many legs." A long pause. "But mostly, _you're_ out here, and it ain't right to go and cure myself or Kodlak when you're not ready. You're my brother. Can't do that without you."

He was speechless, unsure of what to say, how to respond. Farkas constantly surprised him, and that was the greatest shame of all: he should _not_ be surprised to know that his twin was not only wiser than he looked, but that he was a damn good man, and that Vilkas himself should be trying to be more like him, instead of flailing around in the dark, questioning his feelings and his intentions, unsure of himself and agonizing over them. Instead, he reached out and clasped Farkas' shoulder below his hand, a brief touch, before pulling away. And he knew that Farkas understood, for a faint smile flickered across his solemn, somewhat blank face before he sat down in front of the statue of Ysgramor, leaning irreverently against the founder of the Companions' legs.

"I'm going to take a nap," he said cheerfully. "Wake me up when it's over."

And that was how Vilkas spent much of the rest of his trip to save the Harbinger's soul sitting at the foot of a statue, standing guard over his sleeping brother. It was not exactly the kind of night that he had expected, but strangely, he did not find that he minded. In a way, he was damned grateful to Farkas for turning back, and for not letting the two women know his reasons for it. Grateful that even now, Farkas would not leave him alone.

Eventually, he drifted into a strange, meditative state, almost asleep himself, but still aware of his surroundings, strangely calm and untroubled by his usual confusion of emotions. It was a calm that could not last, however, a calm that shattered at the noise of other doors opening, the two remaining stone portals to the right and left of the center tunnel down to the tomb. He stood, as did Farkas, to face Sigrid, who stumbled out of the shadows, her face pinched and pale.

"Aela?" Farkas said, instantly.

"Still in the tomb," Sigrid replied, holding up her hands to reassure them. "She wishes to commune with Ysgramor."

Something that had been bothering Vilkas since he'd first seen her suddenly clicked. "You're—you're no longer—"

"It works, Vilkas," she responded, a tired smile on her broad mouth. The corners twitched. "I'm no longer a werewolf, just a very exhausted woman with dragon's blood."

"And Kodlak?" Farkas asked.

"On his way to Sovngarde," Sigrid said.

"Thank Ysmir," Vilkas said fervently, the enormity of the situation coming to him suddenly. They had done it, they had really done it. Or she had, anyway. In a way he couldn't even believe that it had worked: that Kodlak was truly free, that he could go to Sovngarde as he had wished to do all those years. His chest swelled in pride that she had done this thing, that his father would finally be able to rest in death. In that moment he could have taken on the entire world, if he had only had the sword and his pride and his joy alone. But he was distracted: he could hear heart was beating erratically, and there was more than mere exhaustion lurking in her face. "What is it?" he said suddenly. "What aren't you telling us?"

"I…" Sigrid said, looking from Vilkas to Farkas, and back. Her face was _guilty_. "Kodlak named me Harbinger."

He waited for the feeling of betrayal, for the anger, for the fury at Kodlak for not naming him. He waited, and he found that though he reached for those emotions, he could not touch them. In his heart of hearts, he had never wanted to be the Harbinger. Maybe as a child, before he had settled into his own routine as the Master of Arms, before he had grown up enough to realize that power was not what he wanted from life. There was a tiny twinge of hurt, but then he recalled Kodlak saying to him, what seemed like a very long time ago: _I always knew you'd be integral to the future of the Companions_… and he thought of Sigrid, of their careful grace fighting together, and he thought that perhaps there were worse things to be than the shield to her sword. It was a bittersweet acceptance—to feel so proud of her for coming so far, but knowing that she herself would not have wished the responsibility on her own shoulders. That she accepted it because she cared for them—or for him.

"Harbinger," he said, saluting her, one fist to his chest.

"Harbinger," said his brother, mirroring his movement.

She looked from one of them to the other, and suddenly she laughed, a sound that had more exhaustion than humor. "I'm sorry," she said, gasping, "it's just so ridiculous, to think of that day with Kodlak, when you said, _I don't even _know _that outsider_…"

He shook his head, and extended his hand to her. "In this case, I think the joke was on me."

"But you aren't… angry?" she asked.

"No," he said, still surprised that it was true. "Kodlak Whitemane was the wisest of men. And I know he made the right choice." _I know you. I know your heart_, he thought, but did not say it, for his brother was watching them curiously. "Come. We should be on our way. Preparations need to be made to formally recognize you."

"Oh god, more ceremonies?" she asked.

"Ceremonies for _everything_," Farkas said with disturbing cheer. "Come on, shield-sister. You might even have fun."

* * *

><p>Despite Vilkas' desire to get moving, a blizzard meant that they spent the night in the antechamber of the Tomb of Ysgramor, though Aela had told them to go on. It was cold out on the water, and the three of them huddled for warmth beside a weak fire, though even inside the tomb it was warmer than outside. At the very least, she knew there were no wolves on the island, having explored the rocky cliffs around the tomb before they settled down for the night. She'd been unpleasantly surprised to find a Word Wall, the word <em>raan<em>—animal—upon it, but thankfully neither Vilkas nor Farkas were there to see her struggle against its power. She was glad to return to their makeshift camp, and gladder still in the morning to see Aela emerge from the tomb before they left. The four Companions trudged into Jorrvaskr, weary but relieved to return with a success.

Sigrid felt too strange to tell the other Companions what had happened, and left that task to the brothers while she took the stairs up to the Skyforge to tell Eorlund that his reforged Wuuthrad had worked. The gruff smith was busily working when she arrived. "Something wrong, Eorlund?" she asked curiously, for there was an odd look on his face.

"It's the Skyforge," he said, frowning down at the fire before him.

"Is something wrong with it?"

"No," he said, still frowning. "But since Kodlak's funeral, the Skyforge feels more… awake. It's always been said that the souls of the heroes of old are what give Skyforge steel its strength, but I think the forge knows the greatness of Kodlak's soul. I can't really explain, but it feels like it's… young. I'll wager it could now forge metal the likes of which hasn't been since since eras long forgotten, and I'm eager to try."

Sigrid looked down curiously into the flames, though they looked no different to her. "If you need any help, I'd like to see the difference myself."

Eorlund laughed, and patted the edge of the forge affectionately. "I ain't let anyone touch her in years," he said, "not sure if I'm about to start now."

Sigrid let the matter rest for now, for there were more pressing matters on her mind. Vilkas was preparing the ceremony, which was fairly simple. As the original Companions oath had been lost in time, so too had the oath of the Harbinger. Substitutes had appeared over the years, and all the ceremonies of the mead hall were essentially the same: solemn words followed by a raucous celebration. The more she thought about it, the more she intended to fully appreciate the copious amounts of alcohol that flowed at these events. Being back in Jorrvaskr with the peak of Dragonsreach rising above her, she was reminded that as soon as things settled here, she would have to call the dragon. She could not afford to keep being distracted by other events, no matter how pressing they were. With Ulfric dead and Kodlak avenged, she had no choice but to finish what she had begun.

_I have so much to lose_, she thought. _I don't want to die. _

But the more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed she could leave alive. Bittersweet, then, to take this mantle of responsibility upon her shoulders knowing that it would be only temporary, that she would need to make provisions herself for her own death. She would not leave things as messily as Kodlak had done, but then, the old Harbinger had thought he'd had years ahead of him, while Sigrid felt her doom approaching on black wings, staring at her with yellow eyes. In the end she decided it could only be Vilkas, for all that Kodlak worried about his fiery heart. He was the only one who would guide them the way they deserved to be guided, whatever his doubts about himself.

As the day progressed and the preparations began in earnest, Sigrid felt more and more outside of herself. While Vilkas attempted to prepare her, lecturing her briefly on the history of the Companions and the Harbingers who had come before her, and the words she would have to say to properly accept the position, to officially take Kodlak's place in the long line that stretched all the way back to Ysgramor himself. She found herself experiencing these things dispassionately, almost disconnected from her body as she participated. It was another Sigrid who memorized the oath, another Sigrid who dressed in her best armor, who led the other Companions up the steps to the Skyforge.

Another Sigrid who looked into the fire. "I swear before the flame of the Skyforge and the eyes of the Harbingers who came before me that I will lead the Companions with honor and courage, with heart and blood, until Sovngarde claims my soul," Sigrid said, repeating the words that she had memorized earlier that day, and passed her hands quickly through the flames. The applause sounded tinny and distant in her ears.

And, just like that, she was the new Harbinger of the Companions.

Strangely, she did not feel much different, just despairing. And as Farkas carried her down to Jorrvaskr on his shoulders, into the mead hall where toasts were made, Sigrid thought that these people, who had become her family, who she loved, would be taken from her soon, as happened always when she became too comfortable in a situation. The entire celebration suddenly seemed like a cruel joke, reminding her what was at stake. What she would not be able to keep.

_This is why you always keep running._

She needed a drink.

She needed several drinks.

* * *

><p>After many hours of celebration, Vilkas found that his services were required to help the newest Harbinger of the Companions down the stairs, because she was having trouble making it on her own. After a heroic attempt to drink all of the refreshments herself, she had attempted to challenge Njada for a fist-fight, and then ended up on the floor laughing hysterically when the woman decked her in one punch. The honorable Harbinger of the Companions was unable, after that, to stand up without assistance, because as she told any of them who would listen, <em>Jorrvaskr is a boat, and it's <em>behaving _like a fucking boat now with the floor pitching all over the damn place_. It's a ship, Torvar had said. _Boat_, Sigrid said stubbornly, glaring up at him from the floor. _I'm your godsdamned Harbinger and I say it's a _boat, _come down here and say that again if you think issa ship. _And she'd waved her fists at him from her vantage point on the floor. That was when Vilkas had stepped in, making his excuses for her and informing the crowd of grinning Companions that the Harbinger was going to retire for the night to meditate on her new responsibilities.

"How much did you drink?" he asked, struggling between pity and the urge to laugh at her as she staggered down the hall, bumping her hips into his.

She squinted at him, one arm thrown over his shoulder for support, and frowned. "Three… five… eight? Thirteen? Nineteen?" she slurred. "Ninety five?"

"Now you're just rattling off numbers. I know you can count, Harbinger. Nineteen _what_?"

"I dunno. More? Lost count. Not enough!" and she began to laugh, the sound echoing in the quiet of the Living Quarters.

"You're going to regret this in the morning," he told her, which was enough to cause her to stop indignantly, rearing up to her full height and then promptly tripping over her own feet again. He caught her on the way down, and she barely even reacted.

"No I won't," she muttered. "I never regret _anythin'._"

"Here, come on," he said, leading her towards the Harbinger's quarters. "Let me put you to bed, Harbinger."

"Don't call me that," she complained, but she let him lead her, her fingers plucking at his sleeve. He could see her mouth twitching, moving, as though trying to sound out a particular thought that had been rattling around in her head, but that she was unable to voice. "Need t' tell you something," she said, glaring furiously at him.

"I think it should probably wait until the morning," he said, and this time he couldn't help laughing, just a little: the combination of her furious glare and her plaintive fingers and tone of voice was just too much.

"No, _now_—hey!" she yelped, as he shifted, picking her up (though it was no easy effort, for she was not a light woman, and she'd made herself into a dead weight) and dumping her onto the Harbinger's bed. Though she struggled, she eventually lay still with her eyes squeezed shut and her hands clenched in fists, moaning, "Vilkas, make the room stop spinning."

"Sleep it off," he ordered her, and shaking his head, shut the door behind him and went back to his room. He could remember, to some degree, being that drunk, but he had been sixteen and newly introduced to the beast-blood, and he'd been hurting and angry and wanted to forget everything. The night had ended with him throwing up over the wall of Whiterun, while Farkas fetched him some water. As an adult, though… he couldn't remember ever being that bad, but then again, he had never been proclaimed Harbinger of the Companions, or been tasked with saving the world from an invasion of dragons. He supposed that, given the circumstances, one night of blinding drunkenness wouldn't hurt her too badly, though he made a mental note to ask Tilma to brew her hangover-easing tea in the morning.

He had barely undressed and laid down in his bed when someone kicked his door open with a loud _bang_. Sigrid swayed in his doorway, glaring at him and holding a book in her hands. "I told you I didn't _want_ to go," she slurred at him, stumbling into the room.

"Shor's bones," he swore. "Woman, have I told you lately you're going to be the death of me?"

She turned a red-rimmed eye on him and he could swear that she winked. Or he would have sworn, if he didn't know her better. "Aye, you have."

He sighed, and gave in. It wouldn't do to have her staggering around the halls all night, yelling who-knows-what where anyone could hear. "All right, you can sleep with me," he said, trying and failing to sound stern, "but I swear to you that if you vomit in my bed, I'm going to rub your nose in it."

"'M not gonna vomit in your bed," she said plaintively, as he helped her across the floor. "I just… couldn't sleep in the other room. 'S still _Kodlak's_. Wasn' _right_." Tears began to well in her eyes and he hastily set her down on the bed again. "Wasn' right for me to sleep in his bed. 'm not—'m not—"

"No, no, I understand," he said, mostly to forestall her crying. "You don't have to use it until we move everything out. Here. Lay down."

"Will you read me a story?" she asked, and held out the book, which he saw now was entitled _Great Harbingers._

"Really?" he asked. "_That's_ the bedtime story you want?" It was a book he had read many times over the years, in his studies of the Companions' histories, but not one he would have ever imagined her having an interest in reading. It was dryly written, and she was a fighter, not a historian. She'd told him more than once that she only cared about dusty old books if they somehow could give her more information about defeating Alduin.

"Yes. Kodlak… didn't teach me. Need to _know_. Read me a story," she ordered, for once the tone of command working itself into her voice.

With a sigh, he began. "This history is recorded by Swyk the Long-Sighted, of the Circle of Jorrvaskr in the Third Era," he read, as she threw herself down, limbs flopping in a comically uncoordinated manner. He rolled his eyes but attempted to ignore her as he read on. "While I am not gifted with a sharp gift of words, I have learned the stories of the Companions before me, and set to record them that they might not be lost when I am." It was difficult to keep reading for, in an endearingly clumsy manner, she was pulling off her clothes: first her breeches, then her tunic, then the shirt beneath, and finally her smalls. He tried not to look, feeling vaguely ashamed of himself for it, considering the level of her drunkenness and his relative sobriety. "Hereafter," he continued, doing his best to concentrate on the words, and not on her body, to interject an appropriate level of solemnity—_to a lesson she's not even going to remember tomorrow_— "is the list of notable Harbingers of the Companions, those who lead us through the darkness to glories…_what the hell are you wearing_?"

She was sitting on the bed, totally naked now, the scars and inked tattoos gleaming in the candlelight, and she was wearing a necklace that shone with turquoise stones in a brass setting. A very specific necklace. One that he recognized, though he had not had cause to wear one himself over the years.

"It's an Amulet of Mara," she muttered defensively.

"Sigrid, I know you've not been in Skyrim for many years, but do you know what that means—"

"Of course I know what it means, you bloody idiot," she said, and lurched forward in a clumsy attempt to embrace him, but she misjudged the distance and missed, almost tipping forward off of the bed again and breaking out into a series of what he would have found rather endearing snickers as she finally lay down with her head in his lap.

Would have found endearing, if he wasn't rather angry. "And you weren't wearing this earlier today."

"No. _Now_. Told you I had to _talk_ to you about something," she said, looking blearily up at him through her long eyelashes, and bit her lip. "Marry me."

"Sigrid, stop it," he said shortly, with far more patience and control than he thought he would have had. "You're drunk. You don't actually mean this. Wait until the morning, and we'll discuss it then."

"No!" she said. "No. Wanna talk about this _now_. Come on, marry me. I _know_ you want me. I want _you_…" She attempted to reach for his cock, but he slapped her hand away sharply. She hissed in pain, and pulled away. "Come on, Vilkas. Marry me. Marry me. _Marry me. _I'm gonna fucking die, d' you know that? I'm gonna die an' it's not like you're even gonna have to spend that much time married to me, no skin off _your_ nose…"

He had never thought about marriage before, not really. Maybe in the abstract, but part of him had always been worried about losing someone else he loved, and part of him had worried that with the beast-blood, that he would perhaps one day be the cause of that loss. In Sigrid, he had found a woman he didn't have to worry about breaking, a woman whose strength was visible to anyone who met her. A woman he'd come to love, a woman who was as important to him as Farkas. But even then, he couldn't quite imagine himself _married_ to her, or to anyone. It was so…permanent. Something he did not deserve. He tried to picture a pleasant, happy home in which he had a part, and came up with a blank. But even more than his reservations, he found himself furious at the way in which she was asking. He loved her, but he had no idea her true feelings for him. He suspected, but she had never said anything. And she'd gotten blindingly, sickeningly drunk to even get this far.

"Do you love me?" he asked sharply.

"What?" she said, rocking back as though he'd slapped her again.

"I said," he said patiently, "Do you _love_ me?"

"I—" she blustered, "I—I mean—of course I do, I love _all_ of the Companions—"

He groaned in frustration, running hand through his hair, pushing the strands of it out of his eyes where they'd fallen as he bent over her. "No, that's not what I meant, Sigrid. Do _you_, Sigrid, love _me._"

"I—" And she was unable to answer him, looking guiltily down at the blanket, looking utterly miserable.

"If I do marry," he said, and reached forward to gently pull the amulet over her head. She did not protest the movement, though when it caught on her ears, she looked at him with such a heartbreaking expression of disappointment that for a minute, he almost reconsidered accepting this mad proposal from a woman so drunk she could barely stand up. "If I do marry, I'm going to marry because the woman wants to marry _me_, because she loves _me_, not because she thinks she's going to die. Not for any other reason except that." She was crying now, and whether it was due to the drink, or the fear of death she had hidden until now, or because he had refused her, he didn't know. He found himself brushing away the tears with a forced gentleness, as though he would handle a sick child.

"I can't do this alone," she choked. "Vilkas, I can't do this _alone._"

"You won't have to do it alone," he said decisively, pushing her down to the bed with equal care. Her body slumped bonelessly under his hands, and though she was still crying, choking little sobs that unnerved him even as they kindled the flames of pity in his heart, she let him pull the blankets up over her legs. "That was never in doubt. Come, Harbinger. You'll feel better after a long night's sleep."

"'M not tired," she complained, but her eyes slid shut almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, and soon she was snoring gently.

He crawled under the covers after her, shaking his head at her flushed face, looking in repose almost childish, wet lashes plastered together. _And I thought life didn't make any sense _before _tonight,_ he thought sourly. _Vilkas, you had no bloody idea._ Eventually, he managed to drift off to sleep, but it was an uneasy, restless night.


	34. Fallen

**AN**: Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, I really do love hearing from you. :3  
>And sorry this took so long, I had wicked writers' blockdifficulty writing the aftermath of that last scene in 33!

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><p><em>Drunk was I then, I was over drunk…<br>But best is an ale feast when man is able  
>to call back his wits at once. <em>

—The Poetic Edda, from _Hávamál, _translated by Olive Bray

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><p>Sigrid opened her eyes, and instantly wished that she hadn't. She closed them again, quickly. <em>Everything<em> hurt. If she had thought waking up after almost getting murdered by a hagraven was bad, this was infinitely worse. Her brain felt as though it was knocking against her skull, over and over again, in an effort to break free, and her stomach lurched as though she was at sea. Even the dim light of the room hurt through her eyelids, which felt as though they had shriveled and dried up at some point during the night. Experimentally, she tried to sit up. This did not go well. If anything, the pain in her head increased and she flopped back down onto the bed with a whimper, hiding her head beneath the pillow. She could not ever remember having been this hungover in her entire life, nor having been as drunk as she had been yesterday. Her memory was a bit spotty about parts of it, but the longer she was awake, the more she could recall. Challenging Njada to a fist fight and promptly getting knocked on her arse. Demanding that Vilkas read her a story. And…

The groan this time was one of dismay. _How on earth could you be so _stupid? Perhaps if she pretended that it didn't happen, it hadn't actually happened.

"Harbinger?" asked a familiar voice, an equally familiar hand on the small of her back.

"I'm never drinking again," she managed, and her mouth felt dry as cotton, her head pounding a wild drumbeat behind her eyes.

"Torvar says that on a weekly basis," he said dryly, "and that's never stopped him before."

"Stop talking," she ordered, though her voice did not sound as commanding as she wished. It came out creaky and dry, like an old woman's. "It's… painful."

His laugh was hollow, unamused. "Well. That doesn't surprise me. You had quite a night, Harbinger."

"Don't call me that," she said, and another groan escaped her, unbidden. "Ugh, I'm going to be s—"

But he had already moved to grab a bucket and bring it to the side of the bed. Sigrid hung over the edge of the mattress, closed her eyes, and emptied the contents of her stomach, again and again, until she knew there was nothing left but bile. Still the dry heaves did not cease, did not slow, and she was wracked with miserable coughs and gasping chokes. When she was finally able to gain control over her muscles again, weakly forcing down the shivering urge to bend over the stinking bucket, Sigrid raised her head and met his eyes. His mouth was set in a thin line, and thank the Gods, he didn't seem to be taking any pleasure in her humiliation. "I had Tilma brew her hangover tea," he said, in a conversational tone, and she saw then that on the end table by his bed, he had placed a small tray with a pot and cup, "and once you're able to keep that down, you can try a healing potion."

She licked her lips and sat up, though it pained her to do so. She was sure she looked like hell, for she _felt _like hell, but that had never stopped her before. She had somehow managed to survive any number of things—she could survive sitting up after a nasty hangover, that was for sure. _Although I can't remember getting stabbed in the back hurting quite _this _badly_… Sigrid thought sardonically, as she squinted bleary-eyed at Vilkas and accepted the cup. As she sipped, fighting the urge to throw up again—for Tilma's hangover tea was as bitter as the condition it was meant to cure, though it began to work slowly, surely—she waited for him to say something about the night before, about the ridiculous things she had said to him. The shame burned hot on her cheeks as she thought of it, though whether she was more embarrassed by the admission of weakness or by the drunken proposal, she was not sure. Sigrid had never been one to think too long or too hard on her feelings, and since arriving in Jorrvaskr she had been confronted with far more emotions than she was used to. _Angry_ she knew. _Hungry_ she knew. _Tired_ she knew. She was unfamiliar with this new fear, with uncertainty. With yearning. "Please don't call me Harbinger," she said roughly. "Not here. Not from you."

She could tell that he was trying to think of what to say, though without the beast-blood coursing in her veins, she could not even begin to fathom what he was feeling, not with his face as studiously cold and impassive as it appeared. "Har—" he began, then caught himself. "Sigrid. The things you said last night." The expressionless gray eyes were fixed intently on her face, and even in her diminished state, she could feel the heat in them, that intangible string that seemed to stretch unbreakably from her to him, ever since the night in Solitude when she'd made another stupid, impulsive decision.

"What things?" she said, attempting flippancy. The tea was working, slowly but surely. The light did not hurt her eyes quite so intensely, and some of the throbbing in her skull eased when she spoke. Her stomach still lurched as if at sea, however, and her free hand clutched the sweaty sheets. A quick glance around the room revealed that he had moved the amulet, hidden it somewhere. "From the bit I _can_ remember I said a lot of bloody ridiculous things last night. I don't know what you're talking about."

She could hear his breath, a sharp inhalation. "Sigrid," he said, a low warning in his voice. His hand was on her arm now, fingers warm against her clammy skin. "I mean the amulet."

"But I don't wear an amulet," she said, "I don't worship the Divines that way." Her fight-or-flight reaction, the reaction that had saved her countless times over the years, had kicked in. _Deny it_, every instinct in her urged. _Deny it. _

Vilkas' body had stilled, and not for the first time, she wished she could figure out what he was thinking, wished that she could figure out whether the sudden wave of nausea that hit her was a result of the hangover, or a result of some indefinable emotion that surged through her stomach. He watched her with a wolf's eyes, the eyes of a predator. She had run from him thus far, but he would not let her disappear into the underbrush so easily. "Don't play games with me, woman," he said sharply. "You're not fooling me. _Marriage_. You proposed marriage. Was that a game, too?"

She knew that she walked a dangerous line in her answer, but she could no more change her course than if she had started running down the slope of a mountain, and she forced herself to laugh as she looked him straight in the eye. "A game? No. A joke, yes." His hand on her arm tightened, his entire frame tensed, eyes narrowed. "I mean, come on, Vilkas, did you _really_ bloody think I'd—do that seriously? _Me_?" She laughed again, wincing for though the tea had begun to take effect, the motion still hurt, especially with the force she shoved behind it. "You're lucky I've stayed in Jorrvaskr this long without running. Let alone marrying _anyone_." And she pushed his hand away.

She could practically feel the tension vibrating from him, between them. If she reached out, she could almost touch it. He watched her in silence for seconds that seemed to take years, and then said, voice taut with quiet fury, "It might have been a joke to you, Harbinger, but my life is not a damned jest for your amusement." When she could not meet him in the eye, he stood up in one sudden, rough movement, exhaling a low noise of disgust. "You're better than this, Sigrid," he continued, frustrated, the use of her name slipping out despite the chilly formality of his tone. And he stood, looking down at her with those disappointed, angry eyes, cold as ice. "I know you are. I know _you_. And when you've decided to stop being a fucking _coward_, Harbinger, you may come and talk to me. And not before." With that he walked from the room, leaving her behind with a smarting head and a curiously aching chest.

With another pang of embarrassment, she saw that he had left a healing potion on the end table, next to the tea, even in his frustration. If he expected her to run after him, he had a nasty surprise coming, she thought furiously. She was not a woman to run after any man, no matter how his feelings might have been hurt. It was his own damn fault, if he thought she'd meant it seriously, for such a thing—to imagine _her_, married to anyone, especially to _him_—was just ridiculous. But as she lay in the dark, the pain of her own stupidity slowly bleeding from her body, the sneaking voice of conscience that had brought her to Whiterun in the first place whispered, _go after him_. Viciously, she tamped it down, and just as viciously, she forced herself to her feet. It would not do to indulge any weaknesses today.

Though her head and stomach still protested, Sigrid went to wash herself, to clean the taste and smell of sickness from her body. The rest of the morning was all rote mechanics, as she floated somewhere above herself. She gulped down the healing potion, though she retched trying to keep it down. She dried her body. She washed out her mouth. She dressed in the new clothes that Tilma had left outside the door for her, for today would be a day to figure out how the hell she was supposed to lead a group of mercenaries when the extent of experience she had in command was beating a group of ragtag fighters into submission before battle, forcing them to acknowledge her mastery. She had no experience with accounts—she had no experience mediating disputes. She knew nothing of honor—she had spent more of her life trying to ignore the things her father had taught her in order to stay alive. The enormity of the responsibility that Kodlak had thought her capable of managing stunned her, and for the barest sliver of seconds, she wished she had not ruined things. Vilkas' experience and steady hand would have been welcome in the moment when she opened the doors to Kodlak's chambers and found them as he had left them the day he died.

She did not know where to begin. At first, she merely tried to pick up the papers, fallen to the ground like leaves in a storm. There were many of them, and she did not know which were important, and which were scraps. Though Kodlak was not a writer of letters, he was a great scribbler of notes, and the search for the cure had taken many reams of paper, though without rhyme or reason in their organization. Soon, she had quite the pile on his table, next to the books she'd knocked over the night before. A memory of her terror at finding herself in a room that did not belong to her, surrounded by reminders that Kodlak had known so many things she did not and would never know, hit her suddenly, and she could feel the hot flush of shame in her cheeks. Stubbornly, Sigrid continued her cleaning, though part of her wondered what she would do with it all when she was done. It did not seem right to purge Jorrvaskr entirely of Kodlak, but she could never sleep in the room while so many of his things remained there, a reminder that she was trying to fill shoes too big for her feet.

In the end, she tried not to think about it too intently, to concentrate only on pulling everything apart, from the sheets on the bed to the random bits of a man's life that had fallen beneath it over the years, lost to memory. Though she could have asked Tilma to do it for her, something drove her on to finish the project alone. She was on her hands and knees, scrubbing the dust from one of the corners, when Velwyn found her. The boy crept into the room quietly, but she could hear his footsteps on the doorstep. In her frustration, she did not acknowledge him. Waited for the boy to go away, as though she could punish him with her silence. It was a childish impulse, and she knew it. The boy didn't notice, or didn't care. When he saw that she would not speak to him, he piped up, "Farkas said you're the new Harbinger."

"He did, did he?" Sigrid asked, scrubbing viciously at the dust.

"Well, no," Velwyn said. "He _actually _said, 'Vilkas said Sigrid's the new Kodlak. I don't know what that means.'"

"I think he was pulling your leg," Sigrid said. "Even Farkas knows what _that _means."

She could feel the boy's eyes on her back. Since coming to Jorrvaskr, he had become not more subdued, necessarily, but more controlled. Vilkas was doing a good job with him, she thought, with another of those strange twists of her stomach. "You don't seem happy about it," Velwyn said after a moment.

"And I shouldn't be," she replied, pulling away from the corner and sitting up. "It's a lot of responsibility. Things I'm not quite ready for."

"When I didn't want to do something I just left," Velwyn said. "And then I came here. You could leave, maybe? I mean. I don't want you to. But if you _have_ to."

_You could just leave, _Sigrid thought, but what she said was, "It's not that easy, boy. I can't just up and abandon Jorrvaskr. The Companions need a Harbinger…" And as she said it, she knew that it was true, despite the discomfort of the admission. "But I don't know if staying is going to be worthwhile, either."

"Well," Velwyn said, and grinned. "_I_ think you'll be a _wicked_ Harbinger anyway. I haven't forgotten how you and Vilkas came for me in the fort." As she stood, he crossed the room and hugged her impulsively, throwing his arms around her waist. "And I won't."

Strangely, though she had attempted to vigorously throw him off of her the last time he had done this, Sigrid found herself patting him on the head, albeit awkwardly. "Er. Well, then."

And just as quickly, the boy had scampered off again, no doubt to throw someone else off balance.

She examined her progress, and sighed. The piles seemed insurmountably large, and her stomach, now that the tea and the healing potion had worked their magic, was suddenly growling. With some misgivings she emerged from Kodlak's rooms—_her rooms_—and into Jorrvaskr proper, seeking out Tilma and the leftover breakfasts she always kept in the lee of the kitchen. The hall was relatively empty, though Athis and Njada sat at the table, sharing a pot of tea and bickering intently about something involving a dagger Athis owed her, but they both looked up as she entered and broke into grins.

Sigrid held up her hand. "As Harbinger, my first order is that _no one is to speak of last night_."

"Yes, Harbinger," Athis said, though his red eyes twinkled and his mouth worked in an effort to choke back a laugh.

"_Yes_, Harbinger," Njada drawled, though Sigrid had the distinct impression the woman would not let her forget it soon.

She held her head high, however. No matter what she had done or said, she was still the damned Harbinger, and she would be equally damned if she let anyone shame her for it.

Outside, Vilkas was on the training grounds, sparring with Ria, and did not look at her when she passed. Her fists clenched, but she did not interrupt the whirling blades. Instead, a hastily-assembled sandwich in hand, she made her way out onto the front steps, to eat in peace and watch Whiterun spread out below her, slowly rebuilding from Ulfric's siege. It looked almost as it had when she had first stepped over the gates, though some of the fences around the Gildergreen were still battered and broken. As she ate, her stomach was soothed, though she still felt uneasy. At sea. She could not afford to waste time floundering in her uncertain emotions. If Vilkas would not speak to her, she would move on as necessary, go to the Jarl to speak to him about trapping the dragon. She stood, turning to go back into the hall to dress herself properly for an official visit, and almost collided with Farkas.

The big man stepped back, frowning. "Careful, sister."

"I could say the same of you."

He laughed, then frowned at her. "Actually, I was looking for you."

"Oh really?" Sigrid asked, suddenly suspicious. Farkas rarely sought anyone out, but let them come to him, like small moons orbiting a giant planet.

One hand resting companionably on her shoulder, he said, "Be easy with my brother."

"I don't know if that's possible," she replied gruffly, tugging away from his grip. "I think I may have ruined…" But what had she ruined, really? There had been no expectations between them, no plans for the future. She had no idea he would react so badly. Stiffly, she set her shoulders, preparing for an argument where she would need to stand her ground. Even for Farkas, she could not provide the apology she thought he wanted.

"Doubt that," Farkas said, chuckling. He gestured for her to follow him into Jorrvaskr, and so she did. As they walked, he shot her a sideways glance. "Just talk to him, yeah?"

"He doesn't wish to talk to me," she said, as decisively as possible, hoping to impress upon him that she did not wish to continue this conversation.

"Oh, he will," Farkas said, that unnerving grin on his face. "As I've said before, for two smart people… you're both bloody idiots sometimes."

"How do you figure?" she said, her mouth set mulishly, prepared to fight him.

"He's in love with you," Farkas said, with a shrug of his massive shoulders.

She said, flatly, "No."

Farkas shrugged again, as though it was of no matter to him. "I know my brother. Never seen the signs before, but there it is. He's in love with you. Talk to him, yeah?" And as though he had not just knocked her off whatever steady foundations he had remaining, he clapped her on the shoulder and ambled off into the Living Quarters.

Vilkas? In love with _her_? Farkas must be mistaken. Surely he had not lied, for the man was as guileless as a child, but he must have been mistaken. In all the years that she had rolled in and out of beds, only one man had told her he loved her, and she had laughed in his face. And then a few weeks later, he had slit her throat. It was just not something she _did_, this business of feelings. Of love. _You've certainly broken your rule about _feelings, she thought grimly to herself, as she stalked down into the quarters to armor herself. It would explain much, if Farkas were right: the man's furious reaction when she'd laughed off her drunken proposal, the strange look in his eyes when he watched her… but this could not be. It simply could not. She had no room in her life for love, even the love of a man as _good_ as hers. _As good as _yours? _Listen to you, woman, you've already lost your mind._

She had no room in her life for doubts. Not when she was readying herself to take the stairs to Dragonsreach.

And so she forced herself to put it from her mind. There was no time.

The throne room was mercifully empty, the Jarl sitting at the table instead of his throne, enjoying a quiet cup of tea. He looked up when she entered, and smiled. "Good day, thane. Avenicci informs me that your housecarl has taken possession of Breezehome."

"Yes, my Jarl," Sigrid said. "And we thank you again for your generosity."

He waved the thanks away, but narrowed his eyes at her, thoughtfully. Gestured for her to sit. She sat, uncomfortable at the ease with which he accepted her into his presence. How different from the day she'd slouched into Dragonsreach, filthy and battered, and had been made to stand before the throne. The Jarl was saying, "But I have a feeling, now that the war has ended, that you come to me not for idle chatter, but for the promise I made you before you left."

"You guess correctly," Sigrid said. "Whiterun is safe from the Stormcloaks, but still in danger if the dragons remain to ravage the countryside, unchecked. It is time."

Though he still seemed uncertain, Balgruuf sighed and waved his hand. "Then… Whiterun will stand with you, Dragonborn. We will take the risk, and gain the glory, whether it be in victory or defeat." He picked up his mug of tea and took a long drink, as though it would steady his nerves. The blue eyes fixed upon her expectantly. "So what's the plan, then? How do you intend to lure a dragon into the trap?"

"…Plan?" Sigrid said, and realized, with a sinking stomach, that in the chaos of the last few weeks, she had forgotten that she had no way to lure the dragon to her in the first place. But she swallowed, and held her head higher, an imperious tilt to her chin. "Never fear, Jarl Balgruuf. I have this well in hand. It may be yet a few days before you are called upon to act."

"Aye, Dragonborn. We will begin to prepare the chains, so they will be ready when you are."

"Thank you, my Jarl," Sigrid said, and stood, striding as confidently as she could from the room as quickly as she could, lest anyone see the sudden uncertainty on her face.

On the way down the stairs, she could not shake Farkas' words from her head. _He's in love with you._ She thought briefly how she would have felt had their situations been reversed, had he been the one laughing off a drunken proposal in the morning, and her stomach twisted. She remembered, too, his awkward apology for the way he had reacted to Kodlak's death, the way he had spoken to her, and how he had never truly apologized for anything before. The pride it must have cost him to do so, to humble himself before her. _Why is his pride worth any less than yours? _It wasn't.

Sigrid was not one to consider her feelings overmuch, but she had her honor. And honor demanded that she give him at the very least what he had given her—their relationship, whatever it was, had been on equal terms thus far, with neither of them quite holding the upper hand. She would not—could not—ruin that balance. Especially not now that he addressed her as _Harbinger _with such cold formality in his voice.

Sigrid groaned under her breath, as she went up the stairs to Jorrvaskr. Eating crow had never been her favorite meal.

But she had always done what was necessary, and she would continue to do it.

* * *

><p>After stalking out of her rooms, Vilkas spent much of the morning in a tense fury. So it was a joke to her, was it? If he had been willing to forgive her for the drunken proposal and her inability to tell him how she felt, one way or another, it would not be so easy to forgive her the laughter when he had confronted her with her actions. As he hammered his blade viciously into Ria's, ignoring the girl's startled eyes as she rushed to parry his blows. In that moment, he missed Kodlak more than he had even after his mentor's death: to be led by a reckless woman who laughed with doubt in her eyes could result in nothing but disaster. There was no blueprint for such a thing, nothing that would guide him in the right direction. He had only his rage and the strange sense of betrayal, the lies she had told to both of them. He would not ask her to explain again. <em>She <em>would have to come to him. Troubled and distracted, he missed an easy mark as Ria swung her sword at his side, opening a neat gash on his arm.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "I'm _so_ sorry!"

"It's nothing," he said sharply, pushing away her concern. "It was my own fault."

Ria peered at his face curiously. "Are you all right? You look… tired."

"I'm fine," he said. "Go. That will be all for today."

The Ria had even managed to land a hit on him, something she hadn't yet managed in all of their practices, was proof that his head was not in the right place. That his heart was not in the right place. He checked the wound, but it was not even deep enough to warrant anything beyond a minor healing potion. He was more troubled by the rage that still gripped him even now, the black mood that refused to budge, that was the closest to the wolf-spirit that he'd felt since returning from Kodlak's grave. And that alone was worrying.

Despite his attempts to distract himself, nothing seemed to work. His mind kept returning to the same jumbled collection images: Kodlak's funeral, his body burning, the edges of Hircine's forest that he'd glimpsed in Frostflow Lighthouse, Sigrid's face the night before and her laughter that morning. None of the images quieted or cooled the flame in his heart. Absurd to allow any one person, man or woman, to have such power over him. Even his brother did not have this strange emotional hold, this innate ability to throw him off balance. This was why he had avoided entanglements: not just the fear of loss, but the loss of what precious control remained in him. And so he found himself pushing the limits of his newly healed arm, lifting the heavy barred weights in the training grounds.

"Vilkas," a familiar, husky voice greeted him, as he looked up. The Harbinger stood above him, dressed in civilian clothing that Tilma must have scrounged up from somewhere and hastily altered for her, to better fit her station. The belted tunic was a deep royal blue, embroidered with gold thread and an undercoat of light gray, with a small capelet of wolves' fur thrown over her shoulders. Darker gray breeches outlined the contours of her muscular legs, as perfectly as if they'd originally been tailored for her. Even her old boots had been carefully shined back into new life. Used to seeing her either in armor or threadbare cotton messes that had seen better days as he was, the effect was striking. Unconsciously, she held herself with new authority, though her expression was hesitant.

"Harbinger," he said, unable to keep the chill from his words. He did not release the bar of the weight.

Her eyes narrowed, then her expression smoothed and she reached out to take the weight from him, lifting it up to set it back in its rack. She opened and closed her mouth, and then the words exploded from her lips in one burst: "Look here, Vilkas—I'm not any fucking good with feelings, and about yesterday—I'm—I'm sorry."

He raised his eyebrows, but did not reply. Truthfully, he was too surprised to say anything. He had not been expecting an apology. Had not expected her to humble herself so, though he had done it days before. _And you acted far worse than she did…_ he thought sourly. _She came to you vulnerable and you spurned her for it._ His eyes were still searching her face, trying to figure out what to say to her in response.

She seemed to take it for anger, and the words continued to tumble from her mouth in a rush, as though if she stopped to think about them she would never be able to get them out. "Look, I'm bloody sorry, all right? I was drunk and emotional and—it wasn't right to treat it as a joke. I _know _it's not a joke. Not for a man like you—"

He stood up from the bench and said, roughly, "Stop."

"Are you really not going to—?"

"No," he said, reaching for her hand. She did not pull away; her scarred, calloused fingers were warm in his own. "No, your apology is fine—ah. I… acted badly too," he said, the words emerging grudgingly. He hoped to Ysmir that none of the other Companions were in the training yards to see them, or he'd never hear the bloody end of it. But he needed—what, exactly? To show her something that he could not even begin to properly enunciate. "I know you weren't ready for Jorrvaskr too. Not with the dragons, not with Alduin. It's a heavy burden to put on anyone's shoulders. And it wasn't fair of me to judge you for a moment of weakness when Talos knows I've had my own."

"That," she replied, "is the damned understatement of the era." She looked him in the eye, gripping his hand so tightly that he thought she might be subconsciously trying to break his fingers. Strangely, he found it rather endearing. "I'm still sorry though. I won't… renew my suit, if that pleases you," she said, trying to make a joke of it still. "But I'll pay the bride price to save your honor."

"But understand one thing, Sigrid," he said, unable to keep the emotion from his voice, cursing himself for it as he went.

"Yes?"

"When I care for someone—anyone, be it a shield-sibling, my brother, or a lover—I take that very seriously. I don't give my respect or my heart easily."

"I know," she said quietly, though the look in her gray eyes was intent as it was on the battlefield, that serious determination furrowing her brow and setting the corner of her mouth down. It was the look she'd given him that first day in Jorrvaskr, daring him to do his worst, even as the words out of her mouth could not have been further from that afternoon. "I don't either. And I… I'm not used to caring for people. Not after all of these years. Not as I care for you."

_Care for_. If it hadn't felt so deathly serious, he might have laughed. The hells they had fought through together, the nights they had spent in each others' arms, the revelations they had shared boiled down to _care for_. But then, he was speaking to a woman whose first lover had quite literally stabbed her in the back, and they were both warriors. To say neither of them were good at feelings was also an understatement. He found himself chuckling, at the sheer absurdity of it, though the laughter died when he saw the briefly stricken, furious look on her face. "I'm not laughing at you, Harbinger," he said. "At us. At this."

"It is damned ridiculous," she said, and smiled, releasing his hand, and with the release of the pressure, a burden that had weighed down his shoulders vanished too.

"Do you ever wonder how in Oblivion you got here?" he asked her.

"Every day," she said dryly, and then laughed. "Somehow you manage to turn me every which way so I don't even know." And then she looked over to Jorrvaskr, and back to him. "If you aren't busy, I would have you accompany me on the next leg of my journey." The slight hesitation on the edge of the words told him that, even though things had settled between them, she still was not totally sure he had forgiven her.

"I would be offended if you asked anyone else."

She grinned again, her entire face lightening, and rubbed her hand over her close-cropped hair. "Good. I wouldn't want anyone else. Go pack your things and arm yourself. It won't be a long journey but I wish to leave right away. I've already wasted enough time we can't afford."

"As you wish, Harbinger," he drawled, inclining his head in a sardonic bow, and she laughed again before turning on her heel and striding back towards Jorrvaskr, head held high, shoulders thrown back.

It did not take them long to pack. She looked relieved to be out of the new, fine clothes and back into her rags and armor, more at ease with a sword and shield on her back and a helmet on her head, and it lifted his spirits as well. "Where are we headed this time, oh fearless leader?" he asked.

"High Hrothgar," she said, and his eyes widened, despite himself. She had never yet asked him to go to the Greybeards with her, and he had never made the pilgrimage himself.

It was with some trepidation that he set off with her for Ivarstead. The memory of the smell of the Voice, of its blood and ancient magic, the fire rumbling in the air in its wake, disturbed him. The knowledge of what Ulfric had done to Torygg, ripping him apart with only his words. But it was a part of her even as the beast-blood was a part of him. And the Greybeards were men of wisdom. The desire to know all of the parts of her life, every facet of her strange, prickly personality, won out over his wariness in the end. It did not hurt matters that the journey itself was easy, so long as they both avoided the touchy subject of the marriage proposal. Though the temptation to attempt to pry more from her—_what exactly did you mean by _care for_?—_remained, he kept the conversation moving on to easier topics.

Before his passing, Kodlak had not had the time to educate her in the ways of the Harbingers as he would have done had he lived, as was the Companions' traditions. Vilkas knew the most of their history out of all of the Companions, so perhaps appropriately, it would fall to him to instruct her in their lore. She knew much of what he would have had to teach her: her time fighting across Tamriel had given her the rough skills that she would need to command the forces of Jorrvaskr—diminished as they were—but the Harbinger's main role was that of arbiter of honor, and in that, she fell short. After he had finished relating to her the tale of Ysgramor, the Return, and the Night of Tears, she sighed.

"It amazes me," she said. "The link you have to this history. I've been so used to feeling cut adrift that these anchors chafe."

"You'll grow used to it," he promised. _I hope_. "It is comforting, to know the names of those who came before you, and to know that there will be eons of men to yet fight after you."

"If we defeat the dragons," Sigrid said, as they began the ascent up the mountainside roads to Ivarstead. "If we don't, there won't be much of anything left."

He snorted, low under his breath. "If anyone can do it, Harbinger, I believe it's you."

She tensed, briefly, and then said, "Vilkas—when it's just us—would you not call me Harbinger? It's too bloody strange to hear it from your mouth."

"I'll try," he promised.

The pilgrimage was much as he expected it to be: cold and long. She did not want to waste the time to read and meditate on the stones that dotted the 7,000 Steps, and he found he could not blame her. Meditation had its time and place, but icy steps plagued by hungry wolves at every turn was not the place for it. He found himself glad of the distraction, when they did emerge: his blade and Sigrid's made quick work of them.

"How many times have you made this climb now?" he asked.

"Up and down… it must be at least four round trips," Sigrid said, scowling. "Maybe more."

"Fifty-six thousand steps," he said.

"Ugh," she replied. "When you put it that way it's a bloody wonder I manage to get anything else done." And then she laughed. "Well, at the very least I'm glad I bought you along, if only to remind me exactly how many hours of my life I've wasted on stairs."

"Maybe next time you should meditate," he said dryly. "It _is_ supposed to be a pilgrimage, you know."

She wrinkled her nose but did not reply.

By the time they reached the top, night had fallen. This high in altitude, he almost felt as though he could reach out a hand and touch the huge moons in the sky, the dancing auroras. As though the thin air and the chill of the mountain were closer to the heavens than they looked. It was an eerie landscape, with the darkness of Skyrim spread below them, shrouded by the clouds.

His first sight of High Hrothgar reminded him strangely of Windhelm. Both were imposing stone facades carved out by men and the years. The fortress of the Greybeards rose above him, the stairs curving up in two separate paths to the huge iron doors; the chill of the snow and the building both radiated off of them, and he was glad for the furs lining his armor, even as he and Sigrid went into the building proper. In the main hall, an old man in a hooded robe knelt before an icon, his hands clasped in prayer. At the sight of them, he stood, moving slowly, almost as if floating across the stone tiled floor, a picture of unearthly serenity. "_Dovahkiin_," he greeted her, and the entire fortress shook and rumbled with the power of his Voice. Vilkas' eyes widened: though he had heard Sigrid use the words of power before, her voice alone did not carry such weight. Would it one day? Would there come a time when she would not be able to speak…?

"Einarth," Sigrid greeted him, in a relievingly normal voice. "My comrade and I will be headed to the Throat of the World.

Einarth's eyebrows raised, but he said nothing.

"He can be trusted," Sigrid said. "I vouch for it on my life."

Though the Greybeard still looked troubled, he allowed them to pass. Vilkas could feel his eyes boring into the back of his skull as Sigrid led him confidently through the hall towards yet another set of doors. "Only Master Arngeir can still speak without fear," Sigrid explained, as they went back out into the icy evening. "Although he's not much of a conversationalist if you don't enjoy riddles."

"I don't," Vilkas said.

"High Hrothgar is… strange," Sigrid said, as they began the trek up the mountain. The swirling winds buffeted them from all sides. "It's the peace of a grave. I don't know how much time I'd be able to spend there before going mad."

"Will your voice ever become like Einarth's?"

"I don't know," she said, troubled, as they walked into the mist. "I hope not." The wind was now whipping bits of ice and stone at them, stinging the exposed pieces of his skin, and with a deep breath, Sigrid intoned: "_Lok vah koor!_" And like they had in the blizzard before the Nightgate Inn, the winds melted away before them, leaving only a clear trail up the mountain. They were forced to stop several more times so she could clear the skies, and he found himself feeling off balance, ill at ease. This side of her life—meeting with Greybeards, trekking to the tip of the world to speak with dragons—was still new to him, and he wasn't sure if he liked it. She looked more at home in Jorrvaskr. More confident and at ease in Whiterun. But they had no choice.

His breath caught as, in the light of the moon, he saw a huge, scaled shape silhouetted against the horizon, where the world fell away.

"_Drem yol lok_," the dragon rumbled, as it surveyed them both. "Greetings."

"_Drem yol lok,_ Paarthurnax," Sigrid replied, bowing her head.

Vilkas had never seen a dragon this close before without fighting it, and he found the experience unsettling. Paarthurnax's scaled hide was lusterless and cracked, as though he'd been weathered down by the harsh winds that blew at the peak of the world, and when he spoke, Vilkas could see that he was missing teeth. An old predator, but a predator nevertheless, and though Sigrid approached the serpent with confidence—almost affection—Vilkas moved more warily, never quite sure if the great beast would snap at them. The woman shot him an admonishing glare and mouthed, _he's a friend—treat him like one_ at him. Easier said than done, he thought to himself, though he approached without his hand on his sword hilt. The dragon's whirling golden eyes flicked from Sigrid to Vilkas, then fixed on him with what looked perturbingly like amusement.

"Come closer, _grohiik_, so that I may better see you," the dragon rumbled, then opened its mouth in a flash of teeth that Vilkas could have sworn was a draconic smile. "_Dovahkiin ahmul_."

"Paarthurnax!" Sigrid exclaimed, cheeks flushed. "He's not—"

"I'm not what?" Vilkas asked suspiciously, for he knew that the dragon had made some joke at his expense—he just didn't know what it was.

"Nothing," Sigrid said, glaring at Paarthurnax, "our _friend_ here is just growing old. And _senile_."

The dragon merely chuckled, and shook its head. "And your name, _grohiik_?"

"Vilkas," he answered.

"It is my _zin_ to greet you," Paarthurnax said gravely. "As a friend of the _Dovahkiin_."

"The honor is mine," he replied, though he was not sure if _honor_ was truly the correct word for it.

"I'm sorry, Paarthurnax," Sigrid said. "But this is more business than _tinvaak_ today."

"It does not surprise me," the dragon said, and chuckled again, the sound of rolling boulders. "What do you need, _briinah_?"

"Er, well. The last time I was here… I forgot to ask you exactly _how_ I was going to capture one of Alduin's allies. And now I need a way to lure a dragon to Dragonsreach—any ideas?" Her voice was a little sheepish, though the dragon did not seem to care: he inclined his head forward, allowing Sigrid to scratch the huge ridge of bone above his eye, the lids blinking down over it in evident satisfaction.

"Hmm, yes. I have been pondering on exactly that question… _Lingrah morah_," Paarthurnax murmured, his limbs stretching out like a satisfied cat's. "I have tasted the voices of Alduin's allies on the wind. _Pogaan nahlaas, vokrii vah jun. _There is one who I remember well—_Odahviing_. He is the one to tell us where Alduin has gone."

"So we know his name—how does that help me get him to Dragonsreach?" Sigrid asked with a frown, while Vilkas stood silently near her, a little disturbed at the ease with which she touched the dragon, spoke to him. Almost as if she didn't realize what he was. _What _she _is_, he thought. For as much as he liked to forget, the woman had the soul of a dragon, the blood of a dragon. And yet, she was still his Sigrid, his frustrating, strong, stubborn woman.

"Ah, I forget how little you know of the _dov_," Paarthurnax was saying, startling him out of his frowning reverie. "Our names are always made up of three _rotmulaag_—words of power. You see—_paar thur nax_, a _thu'um_, a Shout, yes."

"I did realize that, but why would he come just because I've said his name?" Sigrid asked. "Somehow, I doubt that _dov _are like hounds, to come when called. Wouldn't he just ignore it?"

"He is not compelled to come, but the _dov_ are prideful by nature," Paarthurnax said. "To call him in such a manner is to dare him to meet you. To call him out before _dov _and man, the heavens and earth. Few could resist such a challenge. Especially from you, _Dovahkiin_. But Odahviing is—he is… _headstrong_? _Boziik_. Rash. Even among the _dov_, he was known for this. He will not resist the challenge of your Voice, _Dovahkiin_. He will come. Now—hear his name. _Odahviing_. Taste it on the wind! _Od-ah-viing!_ Know it in your _su'um_. _Od-ah-viing!"_

Vilkas could not help but hear doom in the name.

_Odahviing._

* * *

><p>It was a strange mix of emotions that gripped her on the way back to Whiterun. She could not help but feel relieved that she had not ruined things between them after all. She was terrified that he might prove Farkas right and put her in an untenable position, and with Odahviing's name bouncing around in her head, and the chains awaiting her return, she was terrified. Things were coming to a head in all aspects of her life, and she was not sure if she was prepared. She had always faced everything head on—or blade on—but her challengers before had been mercenaries, even armies. Never anything of this magnitude. She was even more grateful for Vilkas' presence at her side, his warmth in the bedroll at night, the careful balance they had formed between force and tenderness in their coupling. Years—even months—earlier she might have considered it a weakness to rely on someone in such a manner, but he had become so indispensable to her in such a short time. Knowing that he would be there, guarding her back, made the huge prospect of her fate seem just a little less terrifying.<p>

But part of her knew that, no matter what happened, she must protect _him_. If it came down to what she thought it would come down to, she would not take him with her. She would not sacrifice him to save the world. The Companions needed him. Farkas needed him. If anyone would die, it would be her.

The strange acceptance sat in her bones as the carriage they'd hired in Ivarstead rattled down the mountain roads. Of course she _wanted_ to live. But the more she thought on it, the less she feared her impending death. In the last few months of her life, she had done more to make her father proud than she had in the fourteen years preceding it. She had won a war and ceased the conflict that had been tearing her country apart. She had learned to trust again. She had found friends and a lover. And she had made up her mind to perform one good, final deed without expecting anything in return. The Sigrid of months previous, still lurking in the depths of her heart, raged against her. _You fool_, she screamed. _You _fool_!_ But this new Sigrid, the Harbinger of the Companions, one more in a line that stretched all the way back to Ysgramor himself, tamped her down. She could face her death with pride, knowing she would go to it honorably, as a true Nord. As a true Companion.

"What are you smiling about?" Vilkas asked her, somewhat suspiciously.

"I just—have a good feeling about today," she said, and grinned. "Come, Vilkas. You must smile too—spring is here, and we're so close to the answers."

"If you say so, H—Sigrid." But he continued to watch her when he thought she couldn't see him, the searching gray gaze intent. She forced herself to ignore it, for his concern would be her undoing. Eventually, she forced herself to sleep.

By the time she woke, they were at the Whiterun stables, and it was already midday, the sun beating down with the weak warmth of spring. "Are you ready to trap a dragon?" she asked him.

"No," he said, and she laughed. "But let's go see if this crazy idea works."

Their arrival in Dragonsreach caused a stir among the courtiers. Irileth's suspicious face had narrowed into a frown as Sigrid approached the Jarl, Vilkas at her side. Balgruuf looked up at them, and his face was a war of emotions: fear and pride, and eventually, the cool determination that characterized him in times of crisis. "Jarl Balgruuf," she said. "It's time. Ready the chains."

"We're ready, Dragonborn!" the Jarl said, more confidently than he must have felt. "Just say the word. As I promised, the men stand ready. The great chains are oiled. We wait on your word."

Sigrid squared her shoulders, looking out over the porch "I'm ready. Let's go trap a dragon."

"My men know what to do. Make sure you do _your_ part. I'm putting my city in your hands," the Jarl said, and stood from his throne. At his gesture, Sigrid and Vilkas, and a small contingent of guards, followed him up the steps and towards the porch door.

Sigrid strode across the porch, also more confidently than she felt. The vista of Whiterun's plains spread before her, a now-familiar landscape she had grown to love. With this mad gamble, she was betting the safety of the city that had become her home against the possibility that she might garner information regarding Alduin's return. But there was no time for doubts. Fingers gripping the porch rail, Sigrid inhaled, and braced herself. Lifted her chin, and with all of the force of the Voice behind her tongue, she concentrated on the words, on the wing, of snow and the hunt. "_OD AH VIING_!" she Shouted, the echoes of the words reverberating across the plains. _Od ah viing_! the wind mocked her. _Od ah viing od ah viing_!

At first, it seemed as though the ploy had failed. She could feel herself deflating, her shoulders hunching forward. If this did not work, how the hell would they even begin to track down Alduin? She was almost ready to Shout again, one last, ditch effort to summon this lieutenant, when the distant sound of a dragon's roar sounded in her ears. The guards around her froze, and Vilkas tensed, drawing his sword. On the horizon, the dark shape, small at first, like a crow in flight, came closer. As it drew near, it grew in size, until she could see that Odahviing was a magnificent red dragon, larger and more terrible than any beast she had seen with the exception of Alduin. Unlike Paarthurnax, he seemed to be as healthy as he was gigantic, a huge, feral creature sculpted of gargantuan red scales.

"_Dovahkiin!_ You called! Here I am!" he roared, the hint of flames flickering at his lips.

The guards were instantly moving, readying the great chains, as they screamed at each other.

"Stop him!" a guard shrieked.

"Be careful!"

"Hell's fire!" one of them gulped, as Odahviing took one withering look at the puny mortals running beneath him, and breathed one great blast of flame.

"That's enough!" Sigrid screamed, rushing towards the swooping frame. "_JOOR ZAH FRUUL_."

"_Nid!_" the dragon howled as the bolt of blue light enveloped it, weighting down his limbs and dragging him to the earth. The rage focused on Sigrid, who was even now backing up, running deeper into the length of the porch, into the trap. Odahviing's fury at the use of Dragonrend blinded him to the danger, and as he landed with a weight that shook the entire palace, he growled his fury.

And then the traps snapped shut.

Another furious howl as Odvahviing thrashed against his bonds, shrieking and screaming and breathing flames. And yet, the traps did not give way: they stood the test of time, serving the purpose for which Dragonsreach had originally been built. When he realized that he was not likely to escape, Odahviing relaxed—relatively, anyway. He stopped fighting, instead panting in exhaustion, the cunning eyes fixed on Sigrid as she approached.

"_Horvutah med kodaav_… caught like a bear in a trap. _Zok frini grind ko grah drun viiki, Dovahkiin!_ Ah. I forget. You do not have the _dovah _speech."

"I know a little of it," Sigrid said, and then sheathed her sword, dusting off her hands. Vilkas did not sheath _his_ blade, however, and the guard stance he took in front of her touched her deeply. No time. No time. Never any time. "Welcome to Dragonsreach, Odahviing," Sigrid drawled.

"Your hospitality is lacking," Odahviing growled. "My… eagerness to meet you in battle was my undoing, _Dovahkiin_. I salute your—hmm—low cunning in devising such a _grahmindol_—strategem. _Zu'u bonaar. _You went to a great deal of trouble to put me in this… humiliating position. _Hind siiv Alduin_, hmm? No doubt you want to know where to find Alduin?"

"Where is he hiding?" Sigrid demanded, when he finally gave her a moment to speak. If there was one thing she was learning about dragons, it was that they loved to talk. And talk. And talk.

"That's right. _Where_ is he hiding? _Rinik vazah_. An apt phrase. Alduin _bovul. _One reason I came to your call was to test your _thu'um_ for myself—many of us have begun to question Alduin's lordship, whether his _thu'um _was truly the strongest. _Mu ni meyye_. None were yet ready to openly defy him…"

"You were telling me where to find Alduin?" Sigrid said, though she could not manage patience.

"_Unslaad krosis. _Innumerable pardons; I digress," Odahviing said, with a chuckle, as though he were merely having a pleasant chat with her over afternoon tea, not as though they had trapped him in the most humiliating way a dragon could be trapped. He ran his tongue over his lips as he gave her the information she wanted: "He has traveled to Sovngarde to regain his strength, devouring the _sillesejoor_—the souls of the mortal dead. A privilege he jealously guards," Odahviing drawled, and licked his lips again. "His door to Sovngarde is at Skuldafn, one of his ancient fanes high in the eastern mountains. _Mindoraan, pah ok middovahhe lahvraan til. _I surely do not need to warn you that all of his remaining strength is marshaled there. _Zu'u lost ofan hin laan_… and now that I have answered your question, you will allow me to go free." He glared at her expectantly.

"Not until Alduin is defeated," Sigrid said stubbornly.

"Ah. Well. _Krosis_. There is one… _detail _about Skuldafn that I neglected to mention," and she could hear as well as see Odahviing's toothy smile.

"Why am I completely bloody unsurprised?" Sigrid demanded, arms folded across her chest. "Well? What is it, then?"

Odahviing savored the words as he spoke now, drawing them out patiently. "Only this: you have the _thu'um _of a _dovah, _but without the wings of one, you will never set foot in Skuldafn."

Sigrid swore, a curse echoed by Vilkas. "You treacherous worm."

"Of course… I _could_ fly you there," the dragon said, coaxingly, winningly. He wielded the Voice like a weapon, all convincing weight behind his tongue. "But not while imprisoned like this."

"We seem to be at an impasse then," Sigrid said. "There's no way in Oblivion I'm letting you go free."

"Indeed. _Orin brit ro_. I cannot leave until you defeat Alduin, which you cannot do without my help." Odahviing laughed. "A good—what is it you mortals call it?—_joke_, yes?"

Sigrid slammed her fist into the wall, and swore again. Paced away. Her temper urged her to take her sword to the impertinent dragon's hide—that would teach _him_ to try and fool her—but the logical part of her knew that he was right—she did need him. But even if she needed him, how on earth could she trust him? What if he dropped her from his back from a great height? What if he led her into a trap? The possibilities that resulted in her failure and death seemed endless. As she was thinking, Farengar Secret-Fire, a man strong in intelligence but weak in common sense, had approached the dragon with awe shining on his face. "Incredible! Uh, sir, you have no idea how long I have waited for this opportunity! I would be most appreciative if you would permit me to perform some, ah, tests…"

"Begone, mage! Do not test my promise to the _Dovahkiin_!" Odahviing growled.

"I assure you that you will not even notice me! And most of them are hardly painful at all… even to a large dragon such as yourself," Farengar said with a sniff, as he vanished somewhere behind Odahviing's hind quarters.

"Farengar, this is a terrible idea, even for you…" Irileth warned him.

"Surely you will not miss a few scales… even a bit of blood…" Farengar was muttering from somewhere behind the dragon.

"_Joor may!_ What are you doing back there!" Odahviing roared, thrashing against the bonds that held him, a sudden explosion of flame bursting from his mouth. "Get away!"

"Farengar, even you can't be so stupid as to try and stick your hands in a dragon's arse?" one of the guards demanded.

"I was only trying to get an accurate temperature reading," Farengar said with a sniff, highly offended, as he scurried away.

"You have reconsidered my offer, hmm? _Onikaan kron_? You will release me—_ro laan_—if in return I promise to take you to Skuldafn and stop helping Alduin?" Odahviing said hopefully.

"I'm still wondering if I can trust you…" Sigrid muttered.

"_Zu'u ni tahrodiis_. It was you that lured me here and took me prisoner, mm? _Voballaan gramidol._ I have done nothing to earn your distrust," Odahviing growled, offended.

"You did try to trick me into letting you go," she pointed out.

"_Hin aar, orin nu_. And yet, here I am, still your prisoner."

"Give me time to think upon it, Odahviing," she said. "I will return to you with an answer soon."

"See that you do," the dragon growled. "For I will not vouch for the safety of your little _kro_. And I am not a patient creature."

"I will return with an answer. I give you my word," Sigrid said, and turned on her heel to stride back towards Dragonsreach.

"No," Vilkas said, as soon as they were safely out of hearing range, in a secluded corner of the throne room.

"What do you mean, _no_?" Sigrid asked.

"You can't possibly trust that monster," Vilkas said, between gritted teeth.

"I don't think I have a choice," she replied.

"There must be another way," he said furiously.

"There's not," she said, and as she said it, she knew that it was true. Her shoulders slumped a little, resigned.

"At least let me go with you, Harbinger—Sigrid," he said. "You can't face this alone."

"No, Vilkas," she said, her hand lifting to touch his cheek lightly, the new beard beneath it. The warmth of his skin felt good beneath her fingers, the line of his jaw familiar, comforting. "No. If I go to Sovngarde, it's likely I won't come back."

"Then let me go with you," he said stubbornly, his gray eyes worried and fixed on her face. "At least you won't be alone." And in that moment, her heart broke. He was truly prepared to die with her. Die for her. Hell, he begged her for the chance. And that was exactly why she could not let him do it.

"No. We can't both go. How will Jorrvaskr continue without _both _of us? How will Farkas live without you? And Aela?"

He was shaking his head _no_, though she knew that he must see the truth of it. "I won't let you."

She laughed now, though there was no humor in it, and the strange emotion that had grabbed hold of her when he'd said _let me go with you_ had only intensified. "You won't _let _me? Vilkas, I am your Harbinger. You can't tell me what to do." In all of her years, she had never known this strangeness: he was willing to die for her, and she, though she'd been frightened of facing her death alone, loved him too much to allow him to do it. _Loved him too much_._ Gods damn it_. The realization hit her like a warhammer to the chest, and it must have registered on her face, for though he'd been prepared to argue, he stopped. Loved him. She loved him.

"Sigrid? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she muttered, suddenly exhausted. "Nothing. But come. Let's think on this for the evening. I told Odahviing I needed time to consider my answer."

"Aye," Vilkas said, and suddenly, his hands were on her waist, pulling her against him. Somewhere, a guard whistled, but the two of them were lost in the moment, in a world of desperate choices and weighted balances. "But promise me, Sigrid. _Promise me_ you won't do anything stupid." The hands gripped tightly, as though by holding her there, he could prevent her from facing her destiny.

The phrase he'd said so many times to her over the last few months startled a laugh from her again, though it sounded wobbly. Truly, she wanted nothing more than to hold him in return, to ignore what waited for her in the night. The dragon chained, and the dragon in the mists, somewhere in the land of the dead. Her wishes would not all be granted, however. She would not be able to hold him for long, but she could still save his life. And in the end that would have to be enough.

Sigrid met his gaze, then closed her eyes and kissed him, a long, slow, lingering kiss. All of her unspoken emotion was in it, all of her longing, all of her hopes and her fears, things even she couldn't quite understand. When they finally broke apart, he was breathing raggedly, his eyes dark and roiling with a confusion of emotions. "Let's go back to Jorrvaskr. I could use a good night's sleep," she said.

"_Promise me_," he growled, refusing to release her until she answered.

"I promise you," she said. "I won't do anything without you."

She lied.


	35. World Eater

_Flames I see burning, the earth is on fire,  
>And each for his life the price must lose.<em>

—The Poetic Edda, from _Hyndluljóð, _translated by Henry Adams Bellows

* * *

><p>The walk down the Dragonsreach steps was one of the longer walks he could remember taking. She led the way, though without the confidence that had characterized her in official situations lately. He could see, from the steps above, that her shoulders were slumped with exhaustion: and to be fair, from the disastrous end to the Harbinger's ceremony to their journey to the Throat of the World, there had been little time for rest for either of them. With the sun setting beyond the walls of Whiterun, and the scent of spring in the air, if it had not been for the future hanging over her head, he would have felt almost hopeful. As it was, he watched her carefully for any signs that she intended to do something stupid tonight. All he could see was exhaustion, and a serious turn to her mouth that was not often there before she'd been named the Harbinger. Sigrid looked like a woman who'd made up her mind about something, but wasn't totally convinced if she was pleased about the choice. He had not been able to smell the lie on her when she'd made her promise, but then, he had not been able to scent it on Skjor before the end.<p>

"Sigrid?" he asked, as they went up the stairs to the mead hall.

"Yes?" Her voice was guarded.

"Are you all right?"

"Oh aye, Vilkas," she said, with a dry laugh. "Peachy. Never been better in my entire life."

"Laying it on a bit thick, I think," he replied.

"You remember as well as I do the day that Skjor and Aela brought me into the circle," Sigrid said. "Sometimes a joke, however stupid, is what keeps me going."

Vilkas nodded his agreement, but did not stop his careful examination of her throughout the day. In fact, he refused to let her out of his sight. When she ate, he sat there with her. When she used the privy, he lounged in the hallway, arms folded, until she emerged with a scowl on her face. When she slept for a few hours that afternoon, he dozed fitfully beside her, arms wrapped tightly around her waist so that if she were to rise, he would sense it, and prevent her. The guard that he had mounted infuriated her. At one point in the day, as he trailed her from the mead hall and onto the training grounds, she whirled on her heel and snapped at him. "Are you going to follow me around _forever_?" she exclaimed.

"Until we decide a way to handle this situation that _doesn't_ involve you flying on that monster alone into a trap," he said, more calmly than he would have thought possible.

"Any ideas?" she said, challenging him, her pale eyes narrowed and fierce. "If you can think of an alternative I'd be _overjoyed_ to hear it."

But he was silent, because she was right: there was no alternative. She would not accept his help, and he could not let her go without it. And regardless of who rode on the back of the dragon into Skuldafn, the fact remained that unless they could learn to fly or somehow use magic to lift themselves through the air to reach it, they would not be able to make the journey without Odahviing. That didn't mean he had to like it, or accept it. Vilkas growled in frustration, the tension in his shoulders tangible. "There has to be _something _we just haven't bloody thought of yet. There has to be another way."

"You should know by now by now that sometimes there aren't other options," she replied, and sat down heavily on the stairs, gesturing for him to sit next to her. He was prepared for what would come next: she had argued, she had raged, and now she would try something foreign to her: reasoning. "The dragons must be stopped, and there's only one way that I can think of to stop them. Sometimes there just _isn't_ another way. I've done the suicide charge before. I've never _wanted_ to, but sometimes the mad thing, the thing you think could never work in a million years, is the only thing that'll save your arse in the end."

Vilkas scowled at the wall of the training ground ahead of him, the stones unchanging as they had been for eons. Unaffected by the inner turmoil of eras of men who had sat on these steps before him. "Then let me go with you. I will be the shield to your sword, and together, we will slay the World-Eater."

"Vilkas, if we both go, we'll both die. I know it in my gut. And the Companions can't lose so many. Not after Kodlak. They can't lose you, too."

"_You're_ the bloody Harbinger."

"Yes. But they've known you the longest. By now, besides Tilma and Vignar, you and Farkas have been in Jorrvaskr for the greatest span of years of anyone. You're the heart of them, Vilkas."

He was shaking his head, unwilling to listen to the words, unwilling to believe them true, for all Kodlak had told him something similar. To admit it was to admit that perhaps there was more to him than the fury. The beastblood. Something that could be saved. "I can't let you."

"And I can't let _you_," she said, with a wry smile, before she looked away once more, down at her feet. "Again, we find ourselves at this wall. You won't listen to reason."

"Sigrid, it's not _reason_," he growled, his hand coming up to turn her chin to face him again. He could see traces of the face he had first seen when she entered Jorrvaskr, with its rough-hewn features harsh and weather-beaten, her nose and mouth too large for her face. There were traces, but now when he looked at her he noticed only the wide gray eyes, the determined set of her lips, the unflinching way she faced her doom. "I wouldn't let anyone that I love risk death alone. Not Farkas. Not you." He couldn't quite bring himself to say the words, not even now. Not after the disastrous marriage proposal. Not when she was still determined to sacrifice herself alone. But perhaps, if he could show her, with his mouth to her mouth, and his hands in her hair, with the promise of years behind it, she would _know_.

She did not melt against him, such a thing would have been anathema to any woman he loved. She returned the kiss, though, her own hands winding through his hair, as commanding and proud as ever. When he opened his eyes, he saw that hers were already open, watching him with a strange, resigned sadness. She pulled away and said, "I know you wouldn't. Come, Vilkas. Let's not talk about it for the rest of the day. We'll sleep on the problem and see whether the morning brings any new ideas."

"I'm not letting you out of my sight," he said.

"I know," she replied.

It proved harder than it sounded. He took a break to use the privy and then caught her alone in the Harbinger's quarters with Velwyn. The boy looked _and_ smelled guilty, but Sigrid met his question with a bland, "He dropped one of Kodlak's dishes while he was helping me clean, and it's broken." The pieces of the dish were on the floor, and her face was guileless. She managed to sneak away from him once more throughout the day, when Farkas came up to him to discuss a job in Markarth that had come in by courier. By the time he located her again, she was outside on the front porch, accepting a small apothecary's satchel from Velwyn. Something wasn't right. He _knew_ something wasn't right, but he couldn't quite put his damn finger on it. Inside the satchel he found only healing potions, and Jorrvaskr had been running low. The niggling suspicion continued through the rest of the afternoon and evening, during which Sigrid was on her most unimpeachable behavior, going through the motions of Companions history lessons with him, discussing with Tilma what to do with Kodlak's things, and ordering new bed linens for the great four-posted bed from Belethor's General Store.

He watched her all through dinner for the signs, but he could sense nothing out of order. A certain weariness at her eyes—but then they were all weary these days—but nothing unusual. No proof that she had planned to do anything stupid. The mood was catching, though, and the rest of the Companions were equally somber. With the meal finished, they all retired to their separate rooms, Sigrid with Vilkas, as her chambers were still not quite ready for occupancy. They had barely shut the doors when she was reaching for him, silently, almost desperately. A look in her eyes that he had never seen before, bleak and almost hopeless. He tried to tell her, again, that he loved her, but the words failed him. In the end he only had his body and that would have to be enough. Somehow, he knew that she understood.

When they had finished, she squirmed off him from where she'd been straddling his waist, and poured them each a goblet of water. Vilkas accepted it gladly, his mouth dry and parched, and drank deeply of the cool liquid before pulling her down to bed, facing her in the narrow bed. She lay silently in his arms, surprisingly tense, and he brushed his hand through the short-cropped hair. "All right?"

"Yes," she said casually, lightly, searching his face for signs of…what, exactly? She shivered underneath his hands, strangely soothing for all their roughness. "Go to sleep, Vilkas. I'll see you in the morning." And she leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the forehead. Her arms, however, wrapped tightly around his body, seemed to belie her forced offhandedness. He was still trying to figure out what, exactly, it was when sleep stole up on him and his head and limbs grew heavy. There was time only to think: _this is wrong. What…?_ before a numbness descended and sleep took him into its hands with a sudden, warm grasp, and he knew no more.

* * *

><p>Sigrid pulled herself from Vilkas' tangled embrace, and shook him experimentally. He did not wake. Arcadia had promised Velwyn that the sleeping potion was tasteless and worked quickly, but Sigrid had not quite believed it. Even now, the fear of him waking, and discovering what she had done, outweighed the guilt of her betrayal. Ah, the guilt… he would probably never forgive her, but she could justify her wrong-doing with the thought that she would most likely not return from Sovngarde alive and wouldn't be around to bear the brunt of his anger and disappointment. She dressed herself hurriedly, the warm furs under her armor, every extra bit of padding she could get that might keep her alive. Her fingers fumbled at the buckles, feeling an echo of the breathless pain of the broken ribs the last time she had fought the World-Eater, the day she had taken his eye. <em>It will not end so well this time.<em>

She packed lightly, too: only her shield, the ebony sword, the Skyforge steel in case she broke her blade, and as many healing potions she could carry without fear of them breaking as she fought. No tent. No bedroll. No food. Nothing to weigh her down. When she had finished she looked down at Vilkas' sleeping face, wiped clean of warpaint, and then away. There was not much time to waste, but she did take a moment to laboriously write him a short note. It was the least she could give him, those brief, but extremely important words. She did not kiss him goodbye. There was kindness and there was sentiment, and she could not abide the latter. Taking a deep breath, Sigrid squared her shoulders and tried to ignore the ferocious beat of her heart, so fast she thought it might burst.

She managed to slip through the hallways without waking any of the Companions, but as she went down the stairs into the city, Farkas was coming up them. He stopped dead in his tracks.

"Shield-brother," she said, mouth dry, looking down at him.

"Harbinger," he said, and frowned. "Where are you going? Vilkas said…"

"Don't try to stop me, Farkas. I'm not going to beg. But this needs to be done. I'll fight you if I must."

Farkas appeared to consider her words, a puzzled frown on his calm features. "You're doing it tonight, then?"

"We can't afford to wait. Not any longer."

"Vilkas would want to go with you. Or me to go with you."

"No. He wouldn't. I can't sacrifice him, and I can't sacrifice _you_. He needs _you_. Jorrvaskr needs both of you. There must always be Companions in the hall."

"I don't like it," Farkas muttered.

"I don't like it either," Sigrid said. "But it must be done, shield-brother. The dragons must be stopped. And Jorrvaskr must go on, or what's the damned point of it all? This _must be done_. Step aside."

Surprisingly, where his brother had not been able to see reason, she had evidently touched something in Farkas. He nodded. He stepped forward quickly, in a movement so fast it belied his great size, and grabbed her in a bear hug. Surprised, she returned the gesture, her head resting briefly on his chest. _This is what it would be like to have had a brother_, she thought sadly. This unquestioning support, the lending of his strength, of a strange and easy love that had no complications. Farkas released her, and frowned. "I'm letting you go but you'd damned well better come back. All right?"

"All right," she said.

"Talos guide you, shield-sister," he said gravely. "I'll see you soon."

"Talos guide you, shield-brother." She hesitated, then added, "Tell him I'm… sorry, Farkas. And make sure he finds the note on his end table."

And she left.

Though Balgruuf must not have been pleased to have been woken so unceremoniously from his sleep, both he and Irileth were instantly awake, following her down to the porch with a small contingent of guards to do what was necessary. When they emerged onto the Dragonsreach porch, Odahviing seemed to know instantly why she had come, his shrewd eyes taking in her minimal baggage and determined expression, the guards at her sides, already moving to the levers atop the stairs. "Ahh, _Dovahkiin_," he said with a chuckle. "You have reconsidered, _geh_? Your guardian wolf is not by your side. You are ready to see _lok-Keizaal _from the view of the _dov_?"

Sigrid stared him down, unblinking. She could not find it in her heart to trust him as implicitly as she had trusted Paarthurnax. She could see, like she had with Malvensonaan, the alien cruelty and morals that glinted in those yellow eyes. This was a being who spoke her tongue but preyed on her kind. Whatever he did for her now, whatever assistance he offered, he was still essentially playing with his food, and she must never forget that. She remained on her guard, but she nodded, bowing her head in a gesture of respect. "I am ready, Odahviing. Take me to Sovngarde. And Shor help you if you play me false. "

"You _can't_ mean—" Irileth exclaimed.

"Open the trap," said Sigrid.

"You _sure_ about that?" the head of the guards said doubtfully, a hint of fear wobbling in his words. "You want to let that dragon loose after all the trouble to catch him in here?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Sigrid said, teeth gritted. "_Do it_."

"Your funeral," the guard muttered. "You let him out, well, someone else is gonna have to help you get him back _in _there."

"This seems like a really bad idea to me…" another guard said doubtfully.

"Carry on, soldier," the guard at the gears said confidently. "This is all part of the Dragonborn's plan." Sigrid wished she shared his breezy faith in her abilities and knowledge of exactly what the hell that she was doing.

Her own insane bravado would have to do. Head held high, Sigrid approached Odahviing, who had tensed eagerly beneath the great chains, watching her with a disconcertingly cat-like expression, a predatory air. She looked him in the eye, her arms folded across her armored chest. "If you betray me, dragon, I'll find a way to make you pay for it."

The dragon snorted again, totally unimpressed by her threat or her own ability to harm him. "_Fass nu_, _zini dein ruth vaal saraah uth_—I await your command, as promised. Are you ready to see the world as only a _dovah_ can?"

"I'm ready. I think. Take me to Skuldafn," she said.

"_Zok brit uth!_ I warn you, once you've flown the skies of _Keizaal, _your envy of the _dov_ will only increase." As the guards released the levers and the locks, and the chains slid from his body, with a loud, rumbling groan, the dragon stretched himself out almost luxuriously. Muscles that had been cramped from inaction and weighted down with magicked metal moved anew, and Odahviing hissed in a combination of pleasure at the movement and pain as the life roared back into his limbs.

"We'll see about that," Sigrid said. "I find myself quite fond of walking with the firm earth beneath my feet and a smaller chance of falling to my death."

Odahviing laughed again, a disconcerting sound, and an equally disconcerting expression. There were teeth in that smile, rows and rows of teeth lined up like slaughterfish's. He extended one gigantic foreleg, slowly, with all of the grace of a gentleman offering his hand to a lady at a court dance. Though the dragon said nothing, she caught a glimpse of the mocking gleam in his eye, and knew the comparison was purposeful. With equal gravity and a flourishing curtsey, Sigrid stepped into his great, clawed paw and used her arms to haul herself up his leg, clambering awkwardly onto the dragon's back. It was different than leaping onto the head of one of the beasts in the middle of a fight. Without the rush of adrenaline steadying her feet, she felt clumsy and awkward. But Odahviing held quite still until she had managed to settle herself at the base of his neck. Her arms could not reach all of the way around.

"You sure you won't accept a saddle?" Sigrid muttered, and the dragon snorted disdainfully.

"Odahviing, _maar se lok_, does not _saddle_," he growled.

"You're either the bravest person I've ever met, or the biggest fool," Irileth said, looking up at her.

"The biggest fool," Sigrid replied. "Definitely the biggest fool. Come, Odahviing."

"May Kynareth guard you as you pass though her realm," Balgruuf said, stepping back.

The dragon began to move forward, slowly at first, but gaining momentum as he went. It was not like riding a horse, where the bounce of the saddle was predictable, manageable. Odahviing was huge and as he leapt into the air, it took all of her strength to hold on, and not to slip and fall. The sudden bunch and pull of his legs, an action she had watched so many times from the ground, was both exhilarating and terrifying—a whoop escaped her lips, unbidden, and Odahviing called over the rush of the wind and the roar of his wings, "You see, _Dovahkiin_? _Mu bo stin!_" He was gaining altitude at an insane rate of speed, the powerful push of the wings taking them higher and higher. "Is it not beautiful? Do you not envy us?"

Sigrid, holding on for dear life as Whiterun shrank to the size of a child's doll house below her, could only scream above the wind, "I'm fond of the ground, thank you!" It was beautiful, but she would never admit it to Odahviing. As they flew east, she got the hang of the rhythm of his movements: the way his neck would stretch as he wheeled to change direction, the muscles that shifted as he pumped his wings. She slid forward, in the crook of his neck, and stared wide-eyed at Skyrim streaking by below them. From above, the roads she had traveled threaded across the landscape like cracks in a plate, the forests that had seemed so vast reduced to daubs of green and, in the north, gray and white. They were too high now even to make out people, but she could occasionally see the larger forms of bears or horses, moving like tiny ants. It thrilled her, to look down on Tamriel as a _dovah_—or a god—would have looked on it. She found herself laughing again, from sheer insane, crazy joy to be alive, to experience this moment as one of the last alive.

There could be worse.

"To fly again, after all of these years, is a pleasure," Odahviing said, after Sigrid was silent but for the occasional yelp of surprise as he dipped and wheeled with the currents of the air. "Even with a passenger." He paused, the great head craning around so that he could look at her again. "Though, I must say that I thought you would be more… _nonvul_."

"Noble?" Sigrid said, and snorted. "Let me tell _you_ something, friend. It's damned hard to be noble after you've lived a life like mine."

"And yet," Odahviing drawled. "You _zahrahmiik_ yourself like a lamb, to destroy Alduin."

Sigrid shifted, uncomfortable. "As I told Paarthurnax. I like this world. I don't want it to end."

"But you come alone," the dragon said. He seemed amused. Unlike Paarthurnax, heavy with wisdom, and Malvensonaan, with her maniacal glee, the great red dragon seemed to relish his involvement in the caper and her own folly. "To your_ daanii_."

In the distance, she could see the sun beginning to rise in the east, the first blush of daylight from behind the far mountains that bordered Morrowind. Already now they were flying past Ivarstead: she could see the mound of Shroud Hearth Barrow below them, the great lake of Honrich in the distance, shimmering in the new light. Skyrim was heart-wrenchingly beautiful. Somewhere on the other side of the mountain, the Companions were likely waking to find that she had gone. "Who will do it if I don't?"

At that, Odahviing roared in laughter, and Sigrid redoubled her death grip on his neck. "Oh, you _joorre_. So simple. So amusing."

"And you," Sigrid said. "Are the other _dovah_ truly questioning Alduin's lordship?"

"_Geh_, _daanik_ _briinah_," Odahviing replied. "When you took his eye that day on the _strunmah_, you exposed his weakness to us all. Those who had not dared to question his divine _suleyk _began to question. We follow _mulaag_, not arrogance alone. And the World-Eater _is_ arrogance, for all he has retreated to Sovngarde to hunt easier prey."

"If I defeat him, will you follow me?" she asked dryly, causing another roar of laughter from the dragon.

"Follow _you_! A soft and mortal man?" Odahviing was still laughing, and she could see below them, in Riften, panicked citizens running to and fro. "Oh, _Dovahkiin_. Malvensonaan was right—you _are_ entertaining."

"If I do live, though," Sigrid said, digging her knees into his neck, "will I need to fight the rest of you too? Will _you_ come to meet my blade?"

Odahviing was silent for long moments as he flew. They were passing through the mountains, higher and wilder than she would ever have managed to climb alone, the cold, sharp rocks carved by the wind treacherous with ice. "I know not," he admitted. "The _dov _are a… fickle people. There may yet be those who will fight you. But the rest… I cannot speak for them. And as for me—I like you, _Dovahkiin_, for all you wear the bones of my brothers. For all you have humiliated me. You keep this world… _interesting_."

"That wasn't actually a compliment, was it?" Sigrid drawled, and she received no response from the dragon, who was wheeling above a grassy courtyard dominated by the looming stone walls of a huge temple. She could see the draugr guarding its walls, the dragons that lay curled on the stones in the morning sun like expectant cats. Odahviing avoided them neatly, landing in the far edge of the courtyard's bowl. "This is as far as I can take you," he said. "_Krif voth ahkrin. _I will look for your return. Or Alduin's."

She slid from his back, wincing as she hit the ground. Her legs felt bowed from inactivity and the uncomfortable seat on her neck, and she took a moment to stretch before she answered. "Or perhaps neither of us. Thank you for the… _experience_," Sigrid said, bowing to him. "You were correct. To see the world as a _dovah_ sees it is truly beautiful."

Odahviing smiled toothily, and lowered his head in the draconic approximation of a bow. "Breath and focus, _mal hun_." And with a push of displaced air, he had taken to the wing once more, leaving Sigrid in the sprawling courtyard of the ruined temple. She looked up to survey the long stairs, and the deep ruins that waited her. Of course the portal to Sovngarde would not be located in the courtyard. That would be too easy.

"Well," she muttered. "Here goes nothing."

* * *

><p>Someone grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him urgently. "Go away," he muttered, voice slurring and indistinct. Something was wrong. He did not sleep this deeply, not even when drunk. But he could not put it together. Trying to think felt like wading through curtains of frostbite spider's webs. He would go back to sleep. That would solve the problem.<p>

Cold water slapped him in the face, and then a hand.

Spluttering, Vilkas lurched upward, ready to fight whatever had attacked him, but he lost his balance in the process and instead flailed uselessly at hands that gripped his wrists and tugged his arms down.

"Easy," a familiar voice said. "Whatever she dosed you with packed a hell of a punch." Aela.

"What happened?" he muttered, opening his eyes.

"The Harbinger's gone," she said, watching him sit up. "She gave you some sort of sleeping potion—she's nowhere in Jorrvaskr."

Now that he was awake, it was easier to focus, though his mind was still groggy and his vision blurry. "Gods damn it," he swore, realizing that Velwyn must have been in on the plot the entire time. "Did she _say_ anything?" He looked around the room, and saw on the end table a scrap of folded parchment. Dread gripping him, he opened it, and saw Sigrid's familiar, nearly incomprehensible handwriting. By the time he managed to decipher her horrendous spelling, his head was clearing a little, helped along by the clean water Aela had brought him. He read:

_Sorry. No choice.  
>You're the Harbinger now.<br>I love you.  
><em>—_S._

The note crumpled in his fist before he realized what he was doing, and from a distance, it seemed, he heard Aela's voice saying his name. It cut through the black haze of rage and grief. "Yes," he heard himself say, as if from a distance, his voice still slurring. He forced himself up to his feet to dress, as Aela took the note from where it had fallen and smoothed it out, grim-faced.

"So she's really done it."

"Sounds like," he replied. He forced himself through the nausea that gripped his stomach, twisting and refusing to let go. He dressed. All of it mechanical, route. _I love you_, she had written, not _goodbye_, but the words held the same meaning now. Belatedly he realized that Aela had seen the words, too, but she said nothing about them. He might have cracked if she had.

"What would you have us do, Harbinger?" she asked, formally, as she watched him struggling to pull on his pants. Thank Ysmir for Aela, who could manage to avoid cracking a smile even in such a ridiculous situation. Even in the face of their third loss in as many months.

"I'm not the Harbinger yet," he growled. "We're going to Dragonsreach. I want to know exactly what the hell happened."

"Yes, Har—Vilkas," Aela said. "But perhaps we should wait until you can walk in a straight line."

In the end, he could not wait.

Aela and Farkas accompanied him to Dragonsreach, flanking him without a word. He had the sneaking suspicion that Farkas was hiding something, but any questions he had But no one at the palace could tell him anything: the guards merely repeated, over and over again, that the Dragonborn had requested that they release the captive, and that together, they had flown off into the night. He restrained himself from hitting anyone, though the desire to do so weighed heavy on his shoulders. In the end, his impotent fury had no outlet. What could he do? She was already gone, somewhere beyond those mountains where the sun rose in the east.

But he was not the sort of man to give in easily. He ignored the lingering queasy feeling from the sleeping potion that she had slipped him, ripping apart his room as he prepared for a long journey. Whether it was a rescue or whether he was going to find her and kill her himself, he didn't quite know. All he knew was that he had to do _something_, but there wasn't much _to_ do. Eventually, he heard footsteps, and growled, "What do you want, brother?"

Farkas, leaning against the doorway, said, "You can't go after her."

"Why the hell not?" Vilkas said, snarling. "She lied to me. To _all_ of us. She's essentially just killed herself. Of course I'm going after her."

"You saw the note. You're the Harbinger. Jorrvaskr needs you _here_."

"_She is the Harbinger_," he snarled, and even he was shocked by the rawness of the words as they tore from his throat. He did not know what was worse: that he did not know if she was alive or dead, or the betrayal. She was the Harbinger, and Jorrvaskr needed her here. _He_ had needed her here. And she had left all of them. She had left _him_.

"Before she left, she told me to tell you she was sorry. And that Jorrvaskr needed to go on or there was no point to it all."

"_You saw—_" he started, and for a moment, he could almost feel the change coming upon him, the beast-blood ripping free against his will. Oh, it called to him, the sweet siren song of the baying hounds, the red mist of rage and the desire to rip his prey to pieces. He took a deep breath, ragged in his ears. Kodlak would not have wanted this. He was not a man to give in to those impulses. Not anymore. Except he _was_—wasn't that what he was doing?

Farkas stepped forward and gripped his shoulder. "Brother, she's not gone yet. She could yet return."

Vilkas could only laugh bitterly. "When has _anyone_ returned?" Their parents, Jergen, Skjor, Kodlak…

And Sigrid.

Sigrid, who had loved him, who had only admitted it now, when it was too late.

Ysmir, he needed a drink.

* * *

><p>Sigrid threw caution to the winds and strode up the steps to Skuldafn, a light snow falling around her. She could see the draugr already moving to prevent her entrance: wights and foot soldiers, and taller, spindlier creatures with huge horned helmets: <em>death lords<em>. Strangely she did not feel fear. As she strode forward to confront the first of the foes, Sigrid met the blades that slashed at her with a glad cry, a weight lifted from her shoulders. After all of these months of uncertainty there was a certain freedom in facing her doom head on. She knew where she stood once more: a warrior, a fighter, a scrapper. If she had fought her way across Tamriel, why was this any different? She swung her shield up to smash in the draugr's skull, the satisfying crunch of dead bone and dry skin singing like a bard's song in her ears. "This is it? _This_ is what you've got to throw at me, World-Eater?" she screamed, as she parried a blow from the death lord, as she whirled to face the dragon that had swooped down into the middle of the melee. They were not bright opponents, and she laughed high and clear as she tricked the draugr into the path's of the dragon's flame, watching it burn with a fierce joy. And she destroyed the dragon with a cleaving of her blade through its skull, the warmth of its soul enveloping her.

"_Qiilaan us dilon_!" the wight growled at her as she took the stairs of the huge, imposing staircase two at a time, shield raised to catch the arrows the scourge fired her way.

"Never," she said. "_Never_."

The stairs opened into a wide courtyard bordered by high battlements, and the words were put to the test as she faced another death lord: the unearthly, shrieked words of _fus ro dah_ sent her reeling into one of the stone walls. Bruised, she lunged to her feet again to face it, Shouting the same words back at the creature, as it too staggered and fell. "Oh, you don't like a taste of your own damn potion, do you?" she snarled, but then fell silent as, eyes widening, she saw three more death lords rushing her way. Sigrid whirled into action, unleashing the power of flame upon them without a qualm of conscience. _Yol toor shul_ she Shouted, and they burned before her. For that brief period of time, that brief fight, she felt almost invincible, that she could cut her way to Alduin without a scratch upon her. But then she was cornered by another death lord as frost buffeted her from the other side, and she found herself collapsed in heap, bleeding sluggishly, beneath the fully-dead corpse of the draugr she'd slain as she fell. She took the time to sip a healing potion, tugging the icy frost spike from the spot where it had pierced her skin, wincing as it froze itself still to the skin of her fingertips, as the wounds slowly healed.

She did not move more cautiously after that, but neither did she rush forward. Pushing open the heavy iron door of the temple, she found herself in an eerie, dark room, with a huge altar dominating the first space. She dared not light a torch and keep her shield-arm from use, but crept forward, listening for the sound of the enemy. At first she could hear only the whisper of a strange wind through the stinking corridors, which smelled overwhelmingly of decaying flesh, the dust of years that had built up in this cursed place. The respite was not long in brewing, and soon she fought her way through the stairs in the darkness, accruing more gashes and cuts as she went, as in the dark it grew difficult to see the enemy.

It seemed as though she moved through Skuldafn at a snail's pace, fighting draugr at every turn. Exhausted, Sigrid huddled in a corner and gulped down a healing and a stamina potion, feeling the warmth suffuse her muscles and the wounds close. The eagerness to face Alduin and her doom had faded, replaced only with a desire to emerge into the light again, the desire to die on her feet in the light of the sun, not in some dark, stinking hole. Even the puzzles she solved with route mechanics, secretly glad that whoever had designed them had not marked them with runes or words. She could match pictures together with ease, though the dead could not. When she found the Word Wall, she had never been so glad to see one of them in her life: even as that disconcertingly alien knowledge grabbed her, she knew it must mean the end was in sight. Finally, after ages, she emerged once more into the fresh air, though by now, the sun was beginning to set once more, bloody on the horizon.

_How pat_, she thought, as more death lords rushed at her along the narrow balcony. This had to be it: as she looked up, she could see a gigantic, glowing plume of light stretching up towards the sky, unearthly in its brightness. She could hear the crackle of the magic running through it, feel the hair on the back of her neck rising with it. She fought them off as best she could, but when she began to tire, she had an idea: leading them on a merry chase along the edge of the balcony until they were lined up just so, Sigrid steeled herself and Shouted: "_Fus ro dah!_" Three death lords went spiraling off of the narrow ledge, falling, falling, their hands still reaching for her even as they dropped to their doom. The fall was too far for her to hear the crunch, but when she waited for a few moments to see if they would begin running for the stairs, she saw only crumpled corpses at the base of the courtyard.

"Hah!" she exclaimed, and turned on her heel to make her way towards the final ascent.

As she looked up, she could see two dragons perched on the far towers, though they seemed to be sleeping—or waiting.

Approaching the huge, glowing portal, which emitted a pulsing warmth, Sigrid saw rising from its depths the spindly form of a lich, like none she had yet encountered. A staff stood dark in the middle. The creature floated above her, with its ragged cape billowing out from it, and on its face it wore a grim mask that hid its features, an inscrutable death-smile that faced her even as it raised its hands to fire off a spell at her. "_Zu'u Nahkriin_," it said, gloating. "_Zu'u uth naal thurri dein daar miiraak._"

This was it. She rushed forward, as fast as she could run, Shouting the words of unrelenting force as she did, and he staggered, momentarily stunned. It was madness what she did next, throwing herself at the lich, slamming her shield into its face again and again as it roared in pain and fury. Stabbing it with the other. It was an attack without mercy or elegance, her brute force against the priest's. Ice stabbed her through the side, through her armor, and she shrieked in pain. But the gamble had worked. With a final roar of determination, she caught the creature in the throat, between the mask and the gorget of its armor, and with another unearthly scream, it shuddered and fell to ash.

She looked down into the swirling portal, with waves of magic crashing like the sea against the rocks of Winterhold, and took a breath.

She jumped.

The world went black.

* * *

><p>She fell forever, and for no time at all. The world and the universe passed at a snail's pace before her. And yet she had barely closed her eyes, it seemed, when she opened them again to find that she looked out upon an unearthly vista that she had never yet seen: a misty woodland, with statues lining the path that led down from where she stood. Huge rock formations and trees rising in the distance, and above, the swirling glow of the heavens, shimmering purple and pink and blue above her. Such a description could not do it justice: the colors were brighter and more brilliant than anything she had known before, almost blinding her eyes as she beheld them.<p>

_Sovngarde_.

Sigrid took a moment to make sure she was still breathing, that her heart still beat. No. She was alive. She knew that she still bore wounds, but she felt stronger than she had in years, ready to take on anything that came at her. Perhaps it was the magic of this place that lent her strength, that allowed her to continue on despite her weary body and the injuries the healing potions had not fully knit together. Even the mountain flowers that lined the stairs seemed larger and more brightly colored than anything she had seen before, as though Sovngarde enhanced everything more than it would have appeared in life. As she went down the stairs, sword at the ready, thunder rolled in the distance, and, as if in response, a dragon's roar echoed across the valley.

"There is no escape!" a panicked voice cut through the eerie silence that followed.

"Who calls?" she asked, stepping

"Turn back! Turn back, traveler," the Stormcloak soldier cried. "Terror awaits within this mist! Many have braved the shadowed vale, but vain is all courage against the peril that guards the way."

"What is this mist?" Sigrid demanded.

"I do not know, but none have passed through. Alduin, his hunger insatiable, hunts the lost souls snared within this shadowed valley. Can you lead the way to where Shor's hall waits, beckoning us on to welcome long sought?" the soldier turned pleading eyes upon her. He was, she saw, very young. Still a boy. Eternally a boy.

"I will try," Sigrid said. He might have been a Stormcloak, but no man deserved this end, not when he had expected a valorous rest with honor. "Stay close to me."

"I'll try to hold to your hopeful purpose. Quickly, before this encompassing fog once more snares me in the World-Eater's net!"

She took a deep breath, and Shouted: "_Lok vah koor!_" The mists bled away, though with an insidious, oily ease. They would return. She began to move quickly, but the Stormcloak could not keep up. He lagged behind her, despite her efforts to heard him along, moving as one in a daze. As the mists closed in again, he vanished, and when she cleared the sky once more, he was gone. Sigrid steeled her heart; she could not waste time to go back and search for him, if he still yet 'lived.' She pressed on, clearing the skies to keep to the path. As she went, she could see another form in the distant mist, and approached it. "Hale, traveler—" before she stopped, gasping in shock.

Ulfric Stormcloak stood there in the mist, his once-proud face lined and weary. But he had his head, and that was more than she could say about the last time she had seen him. Death had stripped the arrogance from his face, but did not temper the leonine countenance. "Skyrim was betrayed," he told her. "The blood of her sons spilled in doomed struggle against fate. And so in death, too late, I learn the truth—fed by war, so waxed the power of Alduin, World-Eater—wisdom now useless."

"Follow me, then," she told him. "It's too late for that. But you may yet reach Shor's hall."

He shook his head. "None may pass this mist. By gods' jest in this grim mist together snared, Stormcloak and Imperial, we wander useless, waiting for succor."

"Come with me, Ulfric Stormcloak," she said grimly. "I go to Shor's hall. You may yet find succor."

But he, too, seemed as one dazed, as though he could not hear her. When the mist returned, he was lost.

But that did not stop her. Another _lok vah koor_ cleared a path, until she saw a familiar hulking figure, crowned by a bear's head. "Dragonborn?" Galmar Stone-fist growled, and spat on the ground. "Even in death you dog my steps! How come you here? The king of this realm will cast you out—cursed be your name by all sons of Skyrim, with scorn unceasing!"

"I suppose you won't follow me to Sovngarde, then?" Sigrid drawled.

"I wouldn't follow you to the fucking privy," Stone-Fist growled, and made a rude gesture with his left hand before stalking off into the mist, eyes bright and head held high. "I'll find the damned hall myself."

She laughed, then, the slightly hysterical laughter born of exhaustion, and continued on her way. But what she found next stopped her heart. "Kodlak?"

Kodlak Whitemane turned to look at her, his face weary and lined, but he was younger than she remembered him looking at his death, less weary. Before the final rot had set in. Before she had known him. He lifted his hand, gesturing to the mist. "When I woke from cold death, my doom was lifted—there was Shor's hall, my heart's desire. But now I wander, weary and lost. Alduin hunts me as we once hunted our prey—a bitter payment for many bloody deeds."

"No, Kodlak," she said. "Come with me. I'll make sure you reach Shor's hall at last."

He merely watched her, that sleep-walking look in his eye that all of the souls except Galmar had possessed, as though something in the mist sapped their spirits, their very will to go on. She tried to grab his hand and tug him along, but he would not be moved. "Please, Harbinger," she begged him, but he did not respond, only looked sadly at the spires in the distant mist. Eventually, with a heavy heart, she left him in the mist, praying to Shor that she could defeat Alduin in time to save him.

From the clouds rose the eaves of Shor's hall, clearer and more distinct as she moved closer, and her heart beat painfully fast. In all of her wildest dreams she could not have imagined what it truly looked like, and the mighty majesty of the whalebone bridge stretching across the rushing river towards it. She strode towards her doom with her sword ready and her shield on her arm, unbowed and unbroken. She was ready. At the edge of the bridge, a man emerged from the mist, a huge man, taller by a head than Farkas. His broad chest was unarmored, and he wore only gauntlets above the waist. This was Tsun, the guardian of the bridge, the judge of worthiness. Sigrid licked her lips, for she had always thought she'd be dead already when she met him in battle. What would happen if she died in Sovngarde? She found herself grinning at the idea, for it was so ridiculous, that she almost—_almost_—wished to find out.

Tsun raised his hand, halting her in her tracks. "What brings you, wayfarer grim, to wander here in Sovngarde, souls'-end, Shor's gift to honored dead?"

"I pursue Alduin, the World-Eater," Sigrid said, tensed and ready in case he attacked.

"A fateful errand," Tsun said, one eyebrow raised. He did not flinch, or fidget, merely regarded her with the level calm of one who had seen many men and women cross the bridge before her. "No few have chafed to face the worm since first he set his soul-snare here at Sovngarde's threshold. But Shor restrained our wrathful onslaught—perhaps, deep-counseled, your doom he foresaw."

"I seek entrance to the Hall of Valor," she insisted.

At her words, he examined her more closely, and his eyes widened. "No shade are you, as usually here passes, but living, you dare the land of the dead. By what right do you request entry?"

For a moment, she considered telling him that she was _Dovahkiin_, that she was the hero prophesied on the walls of the Sky Haven Temple. But in the end, that was not who Sigrid Frost-Born had become. The accident of her birth did not give her the right to valor. She had _earned_ it. When he asked her _what right_ she had, she thought of Jorrvaskr, of Vilkas' sardonic face and Farkas' kind arms, of Aela's single-minded determination and Kodlak's pure courage. She was the Harbinger of them all. _That_ was Sigrid Frost-Born. "By right of glory," she said proudly, for the first time. "I am the Harbinger. I lead the Companions of Jorrvaskr."

"I welcome the chance to challenge the blade of Ysgramor's heir, honored shield-sister to Kodlak Whitemane, whom I've watched for in vain," Tsun replied.

"Then I may enter the Hall of Valor?" Sigrid asked. "There is not much time."

"Living or dead, by decree of Shor, none may pass this perilous bridge 'til I judge them worthy by the warrior's test," Tsun replied, and drew his great battle-axe.

The fight was short and brutal. Tsun was like no opponent she had ever fought, more skilled and more cunning, and stronger than any living man she had yet battled. He gave no quarter and expected none, and at the end, she was panting, conserving her energy in case she had yet to fight. But as she lashed out with her foot, staggering him, and whipped the shield up over his guard to shove him back, the course of the battle changed. Quick as a whip she had lunged forward to place the tip of her sword at his throat, pressing in ever so slightly. He did not bleed.

Tsun chuckled, and she could almost feel his throat bob against the point of her blade. "You fought well. I find you worthy. It is long since one of the living has entered here. May Shor's favor follow you and your errand."

"Thank you, my lord," she said, and picked her way carefully across the spines of the bridge. If after all of the trouble she had gone through, she slipped and fell off of the whalebone itself, she would… never live it down. Because she'd be dead. _Oh Sigrid_, she thought, _you're so far gone_. She made the mistake of looking down, and the huge, yawning gap below her, with the hissing of the river of souls, made her shudder. She looked up again, and concentrated on the doors before her, relieved to finally place her feet upon solid ground again. The doors themselves had huge bone handles, carved with runes that she attempted to memorize, so that she might add them to her armor later. But she could hesitate no longer.

She opened the door.

The Hall of Valor was a huge building, with high stone ceilings that stretched upward, almost into darkness. Though Sovngarde was wreathed in darkness, the hall itself shone with a strange inner light. The long table was set with many plates and cups, and in a firepit, huge pigs and oxen roasted. The smell of cooking meat and ale was delicious, mouth-watering. Gigantic vats of mead stood ready, waiting to be tapped. Innumerable rooms branched off from the main hall, and through it all wandered the valiant souls, the heroes of old and new. Somehow she had the sense that though it seemed relatively small, the Hall was far vaster than it appeared from the outside: it would have to have been, to hold years and years of the heroes of the Nords, and the brave common folk as well. As she came down the stairs, a burly man approached her, his long blond hair and beard shaggy, his eyes twinkling. At his back he carried a weapon she recognized all too well: a weapon she had wielded recently.

She recognized that face. She had seen its likeness carved in stone.

"Welcome, Dragonborn! Our door has stood empty since Alduin first set his soul-snare here," Ysgramor boomed. "By Shor's command, we sheathed our blades and ventured not the vale's dark mist. But three await your word to release their fury upon the perilous foe. Gormlaith the fearless, glad-hearted in battle; Hakon the valiant, heavy-handed warrior; Felldir the Old, far-seeing and grim."

Oh, thank the Gods, thank Shor, thank Ysmir. She would not fight alone. Whatever happened, she would not die alone. Perhaps she might truly have a chance… "Ysgramor," she whispered, still not quite able to believe that she spoke to the legendary Harbinger of the Companions. She imagined Vilkas at her side at this moment, after having spent so many hours lecturing her about the man who even now was eyeing her curiously, sizing her up. He would have been struck as dumb as she was now, and the thought squeezed her chest uncomfortably, wishing she could have shared this moment with him.

He smiled. "I'm glad to know Jorrvaskr still thrives. It was a fine thing you did for Kodlak, Harbinger."

She could not think of anything to say, and so stammered her apologies, hurrying through the hall to look for the heroes who would help her fight Alduin. Instead, distracted, she almost bowled over a bearded man in Greybeards' robes, though much richer and finer robes than anything she had yet seen in High Hrothgar. "…Jurgen Windcaller?"

"Welcome to the Hall of Valor, _Dovahkiin_. Fate drives you, but you follow your own path. Choose wisely, lest you wander into evil," Jurgen murmured. "Go now. Face the World-Eater."

And as she turned again, still searching for Gormlaith and her fellows, she saw something that truly made her heart stop.

Across the room she saw a face so familiar that she almost burst into tears.

Her father.

He stood straight and true, as he had never done in her lifetime, his limp vanished, but his features were just as she remembered them. The kind brown eyes, the hawklike nose that she had inherited. The broad shoulders and sturdy arms that had thrown her into the air as a little girl. Before she knew what she was doing, she was screaming, "Da! Da!" as she ran across the hall, heedless of the heroes in her path who exclaimed at her clumsiness. He turned to her and his face was a strange mixture of joy and fear, until he ascertained that she was still alive. It did not totally smooth itself out, but some of the grief and fear had vanished. And he opened his arms to her and she threw herself into them, hugging him so tightly she could hear something crack in his spine. He returned the hug just as fiercely, his entire body shaking.

"Sigrid!" he exclaimed, "my dear girl. My _dear_ girl."

"Oh, _Da_," she said, "I've missed you. I'm _sorry_."

He pulled back, frowning. "Sorry?"

"For not being there for you. For letting you die."

He shook his head. "No. _I'm_ sorry. My dear girl, it was my time. I would not have had you die too. I would not—Talos, Sigrid, you wouldn't have lasted a minute. And look at you now, all grown and saving the world." The wry humor in the last sentence was so familiar, when she had not heard it for fourteen years…

She was rubbing at her eyes to keep the tears from welling in them, looking almost sheepishly at him. "It's been an… eventful few years."

He laughed, and her heart swelled. It had been so many years since she'd heard that laugh, she had almost forgotten the joyful bass of it. But he sobered quickly. "There has been talk in these halls of your coming. I didn't want to believe it true."

"It is," she said.

"We haven't much time, then," he muttered. "Not now. If it is true, I would not hold you back from your foe. Honor demands you face the World-Eater. But before you go… there's someone I want you to meet."

"Who?" she said.

"Your mother," Haakon Frost-Born said quietly. "Ragnhild."

From behind him, a woman stepped up to them, and Sigrid's heart, if it had swelled before, almost stopped. Her mother was _beautiful_, and it was clear that Sigrid herself took after Haakon. The woman standing before now her was elegant and deadly, all whipcord muscle and sharp aristocratic features, her slim frame wrapped up in armor of a style that reminded Sigrid uncomfortably of Delphine's. The only resemblance Sigrid could see to herself was in the pale gray eyes, huge and wide and slightly tilted at the edges. Ragnhild extended her hand to touch Sigrid's face, lightly, almost as if she could not believe that she really existed. Her fingers brushed the scars and Sigrid's closed eyelids. When she spoke, her voice was low and husky. "My little girl," she said sadly. "I never knew you."

"Da… never told me anything about you," Sigrid said, and realized that this was the first time she had even been given her mother's name.

"It was too painful for me," Haakon admitted, looking down at his boots. "It was wrong of me, to keep her from you. But the memory ate at me like an open wound and I could not bear it in the end."

Ragnhild shook her head sadly. "We don't have the time now to get to know one another, Sigrid, and it pains me." But her arms were around her now even so, hugging her tightly, and then her father's arms were around both of them. They huddled there, in a strange way of drawing strength, the two dead souls and one living, but the warmth flowing between them unabated. It was almost enough to stagger her. For the first time in years she felt as though a missing puzzle piece had been fitted into her very being. Her mother. Her mother! "One day we will be a family again. But not now. Not today. All I want you to know for now is that your father and I have been… very…_ proud_ of you." Her voice cracked, ever so slightly, and it took all of Sigrid's self control not to break. A family. Her full family, reunited. It was almost too much, and she pulled away.

"Go, my girl," Haakon said, fierce pride in his eyes. "Go to your destiny."

Ragnhild stepped forward, her long black hair flowing over her shoulders. "Go to Alduin's doom."

"We'll be here, one day, when it's time," Haakon added, and he could not look away from her.

"I love you," Sigrid said.

In response, her parents both set their fists at their chests, the silent salute of one legionnaire to another, and as she turned, she found yet more familiar faces: the three heroes of old that she had encountered at the _Tiid-Ahraan, _striding towards her with weapons drawn. She recognized Gormlaith's blonde head and cocky stride, Hakon One-Eye's ruined face, and Felldir, with the serenity of a Greybeard as he came forth.

"At long last, Alduin's doom is now ours to seal," Gormlaith said eagerly. Sigrid could not help but recall her mangled body, bitten in half by the World-Eater. Now the desire for revenge shone in her brightly, like a sun. "Just speak the word and with high hearts, we'll hasten forth to smite the worm wherever he lurks."

"I've tried clearing that bloody mist before," Sigrid said, shaking her head. "It only comes in again, like a waterfall filling a lake. I have no idea how to find him within it."

"Hold, comrades. Let us counsel take before battle is blindly joined," Felldir countered her, one hand raised. "Alduin's mist is more than a snare; its shadowy gloom is his shield and cloak. But with four Voices joined, our valor combined, we can blast the mist and bring him to battle."

Hakon One-Eye nodded slowly, and met her gaze with his single eye. "Felldir speaks wisdom. The World-Eater, coward, fears you, Dragonborn. We must drive away his mist, Shouting together, and then unsheathe our blades in desperate battle with our black-winged foe."

"It will be done," Sigrid said, and

The three warriors of old lifted their blades in a salute, and whirled, rushing out for the hall's exit. "To battle, my friends!" Gormlaith cried. "The fields will echo with the clamor of war, our wills undaunted!"

She looked over her shoulder, once. Her parents were watching her still. Her mother—how strange it was, to be able to say _her mother_—lifted her hand in a silent wave, and Sigrid saluted them, her fist at her pounding heart, before she tore herself away from the sight and followed the heroes from the hall.

Sigrid strode out into the air, the oily touch of the clouds on her skin stomach-turning. The heroes followed her, and they once more traversed the whalebone bridge. She stayed close to the rising spine of the bones, following in Felldir's wake. In the distance the crack of thunder rippled over the valley. Alduin knew his doom came for him.

"The eyes of Shor are upon you this day," Tsun said, as they jumped from the bridge to the solid ground once more. "Defeat Alduin and destroy his soul-snare!"

The warriors aligned themselves at the edge of the mist, and her stomach roiled inside as she looked into the thick dark of it. Somewhere within the crackling clouds, the World-Eater waited. "We cannot fight the foe in this mist!" Felldir intoned, as they stood with their blades drawn.

But Gormlaith already had her answer: "Clear skies," she said fearlessly, her steel plate armor shining even in the dark, "combine our Shouts!"

"_LOK VAH KOOR_," four Voices screamed, and with another crack of thunder, the mists receded, fearfully, like a kicked dog. As the clouds slunk back, more of the landscape of Sovngarde was revealed, the unearthly beauty of its pines and firs, its statues and hills. But the mist had not totally burned away, and still lurked at the edges of her vision.

"_Ven mul riik!_" Alduin's _thu'um_ echoed across the holy valley, and the soul-snare crept inexorably forward once more, undoing the work they had done. The thunder and lightning redoubled, until the clouds had reclaimed their pride of place, the tingle of magic shuddering through them.

"Again!" Gormlaith demanded.

"Again, together! Alduin is too strong!" Felldir called.

"_LOK VAH KOOR!"_

Again the mist receded, and again, Alduin's booming voice called mockingly from within its hiding place: _ven mul riik_. And their _thu'um_ was undone.

"Does his strength have no end?" Hakon asked despairingly. "Is our struggle in vain?"

"No," Sigrid said. "No, it can't be."

Gormlaith swore, her blade lifted in defiance. "Stand fast! His strength is failing. Once more, and his might will be broken!"

"I hope you're right," Sigrid muttered, and joined her voice once more with the heroes of old. "_Lok vah koor_!"

And with that last, desperate Shout, the mist melted for the final time.

"The endless wait gives way to battle! Alduin's doom, his death or ours!" Gormlaith crowed, and as she did the sky split open with a blinding, brilliant light, and Alduin's fell form rose from below the hillock before them, the great beat of his wings pulsing in time with the thunder that heralded his arrival. She could see that his ruined eye had crusted over, a pulped mess of blood and fluid that had healed badly. His remaining eye whirled, the mad yellow and red light gleaming with the desire to _destroy them_.

"No escape this time, foul _worm_!"

"Stand together and we shall defeat him!" Felldir commanded, and the battle was joined. The effects of the _thu'um_ flew through the air, as Felldir called up flames from his lips, and the bright burning of their fires joined with the frost that Hakon commanded, with a growled _fo krah diin. _And Alduin wheeled above them, shrieking his rage and defiance, the great bursts of his flame all-consuming, bone-melting. He was everywhere at once, his great wings buffeting them with backdraft. She was singed, and threw herself to the ground, rolling lest the flames catch. As she surged to her feet, Sigrid focused all of her fear, all of her fury, all of her terror that she would fail into the Dragonrend shout. "_JOOR ZAH FRUL_," she screamed, and never had she felt the dragon's magic rip through her so intently as in that moment. She tried to Shout again, just to be sure that the bolt of blue light had met its target, but her throat was raw and weak from the force of her _thu'um._

But she had gotten him. With another roar of rage, Alduin came plummeting to earth, howling. "_Zu'u lost kiraan hi ont, nu hin sille fen nahkip suleyki_!" Alduin growled, as the heroes fell upon him. Though grounded he was still dangerous: his snapping teeth and lashing limbs dealing potential death for any of the four foolish enough to risk it. As Sigrid lashed desperately out at him with shield and sword, with a curl of his great mouth, he roared fire into her face. With a scream, she threw up her shield to dim the worst of it, but the heat burnt her, and she could smell the scent of her flesh crisping in the air. She fought through the pain, and kept fighting as Alduin grabbed Felldir's arm and snapped at it, neatly. The Tongue jumped back, but not quite in time: his mangled, bloody limb hung useless at his side.

"_JOOR ZAH FRUL_!" she screamed again, as the light began to fade. She must keep him on the ground. The other heroes could use their Shouts for offensive purposes, but she would use only Dragonrend. If he took to the air again, all was lost. Each stab of her sword at his side jarred her limbs all the way to the bone: the World-Eater was armored with grim power, his limbs mighty, his skin hard as stone.

"_Pahlok joorre! Hin kah fen kos bonaar!_" the World-Eater snarled, and screamed his flames once more.

Gormlaith danced around him, stabbing here, hacking there, laughing madly as she did. "We meet again, worm!" the woman growled. "You will not defeat me this time!" But even as she shrieked, the great sweeping claws caught her, knocking her to the ground. The battle raged, with all three heroes and Sigrid giving their all; her weary limbs, still aching from the slog through Skuldafn, seemed leaden now and she wondered how much longer she could last. The World-Eater wearied, too, though his endless reserves had not yet been tapped, he was bleeding from a myriad of wounds, the four blades having done their work.

With the last of her energy, Sigrid threw herself at Alduin, and as his head came down to snap at Hakon, she grabbed him by the ear and leapt atop his skull, riding it as he bucked and thrashed beneath her. "I've taken your eye, and now I'll take your miserable life," she whispered, stabbing downward again and again through his skull, his blood burning her fingers, her arms, her face. "You will _never_ have Skyrim beneath your dominion again." The words emerged roughly, for she was exhausted, too tired to even believe what she had done.

"_Zu'u unslaad, zu'u nis oblaan!_" the World-Eater screamed in pain and shock, as though the true revelation of his death was something he could not even have imagined.

She could not even summon the energy to taunt him, as she might have years ago, only stabbing wearily at the great beast as he thrashed in pain, bracing herself for the absorption of his soul—for she could not even begin to imagine the dark, bloody knowledge it would force below her skin. But it never came. Instead, as the dragon screamed in defeat, streaking meteors beginning to fall from the sky around them, exploding in bright, brilliant bursts, shaking the very earth. Alduin screamed again, but it was too late. He was dying, no matter his claims to immortality. The great body was weakening, the glow of his soul leaving him, and no amount of rage, no amount of fury, no amount of fighting could save him.

And in his death throes, Alduin lashed out, threw her from his head, and stamped down on her body beneath his clawed foot, slamming her to the earth.

Had she not been in Sovngarde it might have killed her. As it was, Sigrid choked, the great weight of his body pressing down on her even as he disintegrated into a ball of flames, the weight of him cracking her bones like porcelain and shoving the very breath from her body. And then, just as she was sure she would perish, Alduin exploded, his body like a burning ember with flames bursting from within. The sudden force outward sent Sigrid flying, burning, too shocked to even scream. And Alduin too, in a final crack of thunder and roar of the heavens, expired in a burning pillar of light ascending upwards to the sky.

She lay on the ground, too stunned to move. Sovngarde suddenly seemed very quiet and dark and calm. As she lay on her back in the grass, aching, the sky began to lighten. The darkness that the snare had brought with it fading away, until everything glowed a beautiful, calm blue. The heavenly auroras flickered into light once more, ringing Shor's hall with a halo of gold.

"This was a mighty deed! The doom of Alduin encompassed at last, and cleansed is Sovngarde of his evil snare!" Tsun exclaimed, as he strode towards her. "They will sing of this battle in Shor's hall forever, but your fate lies elsewhere. When you have completed your count of days, I may welcome you again with glad friendship and bid you join the blessed feasting. When you are ready to rejoin the living, just bid me so, and I will send you back." And he extended his hand to her, and hauled her to her feet. She faltered, almost falling.

"All hail the Dragonborn! All hail her with great praise!" the heroes exclaimed in chorus.

"Even here where heroes throng, few can match this mighty deed. What glory! The gods themselves must envy us this well-earned honor!" Gormlaith said, her face bright and shining.

Sigrid would have settled for the gods healing her wounds. The pain she had held at bay returned in full force, and she knew that only the magical qualities of the land of the dead were keeping it manageable. If she was stronger and faster here, she would not last long in the land of the living. If she returned to Nirn now, she would return to Sovngarde within hours, she was sure of it. But one last thing needed to be done before she rejoined her parents, before she took her place beside Kodlak and Ysgramor and the Harbingers before her. One last thing before she could rest. "I'm ready."

"Return now to Nirn, with this rich boon from Shor, my Lord: a Shout to bring a hero from Sovngarde in your hour of need…" Tsun intoned, and lifted his hands to the sky, which once again glowed with the brilliant colors of a jeweled sunset, the heavens and earth.

And with the words _nahl daal vus_ echoing in her ears, the world swirled around her, brightening to an intensity that was almost blinding, until it faded to black, and blessed silence.

* * *

><p>He had been drunk before in his lifetime, but never like this.<p>

Aela and Farkas had stopped attempting to take the ale away from him several hours ago. "You're going to regret this in the morning," Farkas said disapprovingly, but sat with him nonetheless. But it was Aela who understood him most clearly, Aela who had loved and lost. Aela who sat next to him in silence, her lovely face grim and concentrated. Aela who stayed his hand when Torvar made an impertinent remark and Vilkas surged from the seat to punish him for it. Aela who took him outside to watch the sunset, and Aela who answered him patiently when he vented his spleen. "Shor damn her from Sovngarde," he found himself saying after many hours, although it came out in a jumbled mess of syllables that miraculously, Aela seemed to understand. "What was she thinking? How bloody dare she leave me—I mean leave us—that way? _Why wouldn't she take a shield-sibling_?"

"You cannot dissuade the doom-driven," Aela replied. It was not, exactly, the most comforting shoulder to be offered, but somehow the very grimness of her words made him feel a little bit better. She was nothing if not practical, their Aela.

"But why," he was saying, almost against his will, "did she have to wait until then to—write—that? When it's too gods-damned _late_?"

Aela looked up at the stars, her hands gripping her knees. "The love of a warrior is a strange thing," she said. "The feelings of a pack animal are a strange thing. What do words really mean, in the end?" She snorted. "I never said those words to Skjor. He never said the words to me. But I always knew. In the end it didn't matter. Does it matter to you, shield-brother?"

"Yes, damn it," he said. And here it was: the reason why he never drank _this _much. There was an honesty in ale that he did not much like. "There are too many damned loose threads to my life. And this is another." He threw the mug from the stairs and it shattered against the stones. The noise was satisfying but not satisfying enough—the urge to destroy everything in his path had not receded. "A loose thread. Hah. That doesn't begin to… Does the question _what if_ not bloody torture you? What if you'd been faster, what if you'd seen through their plans? How the hell can you be so calm?"

"_What if_ does not," Aela replied. "The loss, yes. But I do not ask such questions." She laughed, hollow. "And you know nothing, shield-brother, if you think me calm." The thin smile again, cold. "The loss never grows _easier_, just duller. Dimmer. You'll find it possible to face the world with courage again. With stoicism. The heart scars just like any other bit of skin."

He had had enough of philosophy, enough talk of hearts. He lurched to his feet. "I'm going down to the city."

"I don't know if that's the best—"

"Don't bloody argue with me."

She was right, of course.

Several hours later, after more drinking and letting his tongue run sharply to anyone stupid enough to cross his path, he had gotten, in quick succession, into a fist fight with Hrongar, a fist fight with Sinmir, and a fist fight with Mikael when the bard had the temerity to play "The Dragonborn Comes" in his presence. The fights quelled the fire in him momentarily, but could not assuage it: even leaving broken, bleeding men in his path could not fill the hole she had left in her wake. It was Aela who pulled him away when he had the man down on the ground, punching him repeatedly in the face with one hand as he smashed the bastard's lute into pieces with the other. But it was Farkas who prevented him from lunging at the guards who had come to drag him to the dungeons, and Farkas lugged him back up the stairs to Jorrvaskr. Athis paid his assault bounties out of the Jorrvaskr purse, muttering apologies. Even when he behaved shamefully, the Companions had his back.

"Do you feel better, brother?" his twin asked.

"No," Vilkas said. It was true. The rage and grief remained. The alcohol had not dimmed them. The fights had not assuaged them. He could not go after her. _What in Oblivion do I have left to do_? It was the helplessness of it that pained him the most. Watching the skies and knowing that somewhere she was out there, fighting, perhaps dying, and he sat here like a fool, safe in his home.

"Take a breather. And some water."

"No," Vilkas said.

In the end, they sat for a while on the stairs once more, while Vilkas rubbed the bleeding gash on his forehead, having refused a healing potion. In the end, Farkas' silence did him more good than anything else.

Until the skies suddenly broke apart.

First it seemed as though a thunderstorm rolled in suddenly above the city, but then as he looked up, he saw that the storm itself extended as far as the eye could see, with the lightning flashing white and blue and an unnatural purple. No rain fell from the heavy black clouds, swirling through with unnatural yellow and purple, like a bruise. Instead the rolling, booming thunder shook the very earth, the buildings themselves, and in the noise he almost thought he could hear a dragon's unearthly roar, shrieking its defiance. All through Whiterun, the people ran from their homes to look fearfully up at the sky, for never before had a storm like this been seen above the city, never in human memory. Vilkas looked up at it in wonder, for the wild beauty of it was like nothing he had ever experienced in his all his years on Nirn. The air stank of blood and iron and ancient magic, the scent of dragons, as though the entire world had been permeated with it in that moment. He found his hands had clenched until his knuckles whitened.

As the storm continued raging, hours later, the rumors once more began to spread like wildfire through the streets. Danica Pure-Spring had seen a vision in the clouds, of the Dragonborn battling Alduin alongside the heroes of old. She had seen the great beast throw her to the ground, roaring his triumph. The storms echoed down from Sovngarde itself, the clash of their steel against the World-Eater's might, streaks of meteor showers such as had never been seen before in the night sky, hundreds of brilliant, burning shooting stars that exploded like fireworks above them.

Vilkas stood abruptly, and went back inside the mead hall, before he did anything else he would later regret.

Once again he was helpless to save someone he loved.

All he wished for now was the silence of Oblivion.

He found it at the bottom of the bottle, long before the skies cleared.

* * *

><p>Sigrid came to herself again on the Throat of the World, and the pain which had been kept at bay in Sovngarde and with the last of her meager healing potion—not enough, never enough—returned full force. Not for the kinds of wounds she had suffered. As she looked up into the grim clouds, the snow fell heavily around her, cresting on her lashes, in her hair. She tried to catalog her injuries—burned skin, broken ribs, broken arm, innumerable slashes—and lost count. She was fairly certain she was bleeding internally and her head felt fuzzy and thick. It was hard to focus on anything at that moment. But as she looked up she saw a sight that she would never forget until the end of her days, as close as they might have been.<p>

The crack of thunder through the snow clouds at the throat of the world,. All around her the dragons roared, an unearthly chorus that shivered her right down to the bone. The great beasts perched in a ring on the huge boulders, more of them in one place than she had ever seen. An eerie kingsmoot. Their voices shook the earth, a howl of primal power as they screamed their shock and rage to the sky, a wild melancholy, a lament for the son of a god who had fallen before them.

"_Alduin mahlaan_!" they roared.

"_Sahrot thur quhnaraan_!"

"_Dovahkiin los ok dovahkriid!"_ they Shouted, and the world shook with their grief and their shock.

As they screamed, the dragons began to take to the air, one by one, wheeling above her like the hawks of Solitude, and the sound of their wings joined the crack of thunder, their flame the flash of lightning.

"_Alduin mahlaan!_" came once more the howling chorus.

"_Thu'umii los nahlot_!"

"_Mu los vamir_!"

"_ALDUIN MAHLAAN!_"

"So," Paarthurnax said, as she stumbled forward, towards the _rotmulaag_ where she had first met him. He appeared as if from the ether; while the other dragons had been roaring, he had been silent. Melancholy. The snow was falling harder now and the heavy flakes and the gauze that seemed to have been wrapped around her eyes made it hard to see. She forced herself to focus. He looked very old then, every bit of the accumulated years weighting down his shoulder. "It is done. Alduin _dilon_. The eldest is no more, he who came before all others, and has always been." The dragons wheeled above them in a circle, roaring wordlessly. Guarding them? Ready to attack?

"You don't sound very happy about it," Sigrid said, her voice thick and slurred. It took all of her concentration to keep herself standing, when every instinct roared at her to collapse, to curl up on the ground and sleep. When her bones could barely hold her weight. Paarthurnax must have sensed it, but he must also have sensed her ambivalence. The small part of her that wanted to give up. It would be so easy, so easy just to go to sleep, to lay her head down on the cold ground and never wake up. She blinked, her vision blurry and unfocused.

"Happy?" Paarthurnax mused. "No… _Zeymahi lost ont du'ul bormahu_. Alduin was once the crown of our father Akatosh's creation. You did what was necessary. Alduin had flown far from the path of right action in his _pahlok_—the arrogance of his power. But I cannot celebrate his fall. _Zu'u tiiraaz ahst ok mah._ He was my brother once. This world will never be the same." Even Paarthurnax could not disguise the melancholy in his voice; though he had helped her destroy Alduin without hesitation, his mourning was genuine.

"The world will be a better place without Alduin," Sigrid gasped. If she concentrated solely on Paarthurnax's voice, she could keep the pain at bay. She could remain standing. She must remain standing.

"Perhaps. At least it will continue to exist. _Grik los lein_. And, as you told me once, _briinah_, the next world will have to take care of itself."

She laughed at that memory, how young she had been, how brash and foolish to stand before him and proclaim such a thing. Another lifetime ago. The sound pulled unpleasantly at the wounds within her, and she could feel the tears leaking from her eyes.

Paarthurnax still seemed to be in a meditative mood, as he mused: "_Ful nii los. _Even I cannot see past time's ending. But I forget myself. _Krosis so los mid fahdon._ Melancholy is an easy trap for a _dovah_ to fall into. You have won a might victory, _briinah. Sahrot krongrah._ One that will echo through all the ages of this world for those who have eyes to see. Savor your triumph, _Dovahkiin_! This is not the last of what you will write upon the currents of time."

"It may yet be," Sigrid said.

"Shall I bring you to the Greybeards, _briinah_?" Paarthurnax asked, fixing her with one sharp yellow eye. "Say the word and I will take you."

"No… I just need to think, for a few more moments," Sigrid said. "The cold clears my head. To let the world take its course. Leave me. Please. Where will you go now, _zeymahi_?"

"As you will, _briinahi_. I trust you know what you do this day," Paarthurnax said, though his shrewd eyes pierced her. He knew exactly what she was doing, but he would respect her choice. "_Garaan!_ I feel younger than I have in many an age. Many of the _dovahhe_ are now scattered across _Keizaal_. Without Alduin's lordship, they may yet bow to the _vahzen_—the rightness—of my _thu'um_. But willing or no, they will hear it! Fare thee well, _Dovahkiin_!"

That was what she had needed to know, needed to hear. Though dragons still flew in Skyrim, no new beasts would yet be raised. And Paarthurnax would talk to them—he would make them see the rightness of his way. She knew that he would. They would see the wisdom of his ways. With Alduin gone and her brother of the wing spreading the Way of the Voice, Skyrim would have its chance. Vilkas would have a chance. She had done it. She had saved them. Somehow she had thought it would feel differently, that she would have a sense of triumph or rightness or joy. Instead, she only felt blank, wiped clean of everything. All she wanted was to sleep.

"_Su'um ahrk_ _morah_, Paarthurnax," she whispered, as he bunched his legs and with that, took to the sky. That was all she could manage: Sigrid's legs gave out from under her, and she slipped to the snow, unable even to summon the energy to shield her head with her hands. The hot blood seeped from her wounds, melting the earth to a slurry beneath her. But she could not feel the cold now, nor the pain, and as the dark came for her with glad hands, she accepted the truth without fear.

She was dying.


	36. Healing

**AN: **Thanks so much to everyone who's favorited & reviewed. :D If you're so inclined, I've made two mixes that go along with the novel. 8tracks (dot) com /gunhilde/a-soldier-on-my-own and 8tracks (dot) com /gunhilde/howlin-for-you Also, this was originally going to be the last chapter, but I think I might leave this on its own and move some of the other scenes to the next one.

* * *

><p>…<em>I still might live,<br>For well I loved the warrior brave,  
>The giver of swords, as my very self.<em>

—The Poetic Edda, from _Oddrúnargrátr, _translated by Henry Adams Bellows

* * *

><p>In the end, even attempting to obliterate himself into nothingness didn't help. The echoing cry that had been heard all across the country—<em>ALDUIN MAHLAAN—<em>had woken him and, in the end, he could not sleep, could not forget. Could not wipe the image of her broken body bleeding out on the cold ground, far beyond the eastern horizon. Could not stop thinking of her sneaking from their room while he lay insensible, helpless to prevent her sacrifice. She had defeated the World-Eater, but at what cost?

Dawn was still a few hours off when he stumbled from the Jorrvaskr living quarters and out into the cold night air that still crackled with the after effects of the otherworldly storm. Though his steps were still unsteady and the buzzing warmth of the ale coursed through him, Vilkas found himself climbing the wall of Jorrvaskr for the second time in as many months. Something about the height and the solitude called to him, and he gave in to the baser urge. As he pulled himself up the eaves of the mead hall, hands slipping just a bit, clumsy with drink, he thought it would be very easy to fall. With a wry smile he remembered all too well the day, as a child, he'd broken his arm in just such a manner.

How little he'd known then.

How damned _young_ he'd been.

He could feel the ache of missing her, a hole that could not be filled.

The stars winked above, now that the clouds had cleared. But this night had brought with it the new moons, and the plains of Whiterun were dark and shadowed without Masser and Secunda's reflected glow. The crickets had finally emerged after the long winter, and their trembling song was the only noise that disturbed his solitude. He was too exhausted to feel much of anything anymore, a small blessing for the evening. He welcomed the silence, the stillness, the lack of his shield-siblings constantly at his side, trying and failing to make things easier. To smooth things over. The world spun gently around him as he remembered her in the Frostflow Lighthouse, muttering _don't die on me, don't fucking _die, as she cradled his head in her lap.

"Godsdamnit, Sigrid," he muttered. "Don't die."

He could even find it in him to forgive her lies. If only she was out there somewhere, still breathing.

Alone, Vilkas waited for the sunrise, doing his best to ignore the hollowness behind his ribs.

* * *

><p>She opened her eyes.<p>

To her dazed surprise, she still lay in the snow at the Throat of the World, only the cold gray before her while she had expected to see the warm, brilliant colors of Sovngarde. After the eerie chorus of mourning dragons, the Throat stood frighteningly silent, with only the howling wind rushing around her to break the quiet. She had returned to the land of the living, and she was alone. And so too did the pain return, the dull aches and the sharp pangs, the ragged sound of her breath in her ears. _Why aren't I dead_? she thought and wincing, attempted to drag herself into a sitting position. It was harder and harder to move. Death could not be far, even if it had not come for her yet. All she had to do was stay here, let the cold and the bleeding take its course, and she would return to her family.

_Family_.

The word did not conjure up solely memories of her father or the new, unfamiliar face of her mother, though she saw them in her mind's eye.

_Family_ was Jorrvaskr. _Family_ was Vilkas' blunt ways and sharp mind and warm arms. _Family_ was Farkas' unexpected wisdom and kind heart.

She pulled herself up, her fingers scrabbling at the ice. The effort took an insane amount of her remaining energy and she sat with her back propped up against the rock, panting. She concentrated on her breathing so that she would not cry: a warrior did not cry at pain, even a pain so throbbing, so all consuming. What would he be doing now? He must have discovered the note. He must be… Whatever he must be doing, there was no way that she could do anything about it now. Her eyes slipped shut again.

Almost, almost, the darkness reclaimed her.

One image flashed in her mind: gray eyes in the dark, the night in Windhelm when he'd reached desperately for her for comfort.

He was still alive.

Her mother and father would be waiting when it was her time.

Vilkas was still waiting _here_. She could not leave him to face the world alone. Not after everything they had shared. Not after she had finally admitted to herself, and to him, what he really meant to her.

_It is _not_ my time._

It would be easy to die, but she had never taken the easy way of things. She had never before given up, and if she did now, she would never be able to forgive herself, not until the next world ended too. With the last of her strength she took a deep breath, a breath that almost killed her, and called up the _thu'um_, the knowledge of the words of power: "_OD AH VIING_!"

Or tried to call. Even in her dimmed hearing, her Voice emerged weak and creaky, almost a whisper. Though she had felt the warmth of the _thu'um_ rising in her, she could not imagine that anything, let alone a dragon, could have heard it. Her heart knocking painfully against her ribs, she took another deep and gasping breath. Another few minutes of panting, burning breaths before she could call again. "_OD AH VIING_!"

And then she could only wait, the throbbing of her heart loud in her ears, the rush of the blood to her head.

The sound of wings beating the air.

A rumbling voice.

"_Dovahkiin_?" Odahviing said, as he landed. The dragon stalked forward, examining her broken form, laying on the ground with something that might almost have been concern, on a less draconian face. On him, it was mere polite interest. "You called."

She looked up at him, exhausted, and managed to choke out, "Whiterun. Please," before she lost consciousness again.

Though she could not see it, the dragon seemed to understand. Odahviing moved forward with surprising delicacy, and picked the fallen Dragonborn up in his huge claws, her body small and battered between his talons, limp in the gigantic hands of the _dovah_.

Thus burdened, Odahviing leapt into the sky.

* * *

><p>The sky was beginning to warm with the coming dawn. And when he first looked up and saw the huge hulking shapes on the horizon, Vilkas thought his eyes played tricks upon him, that drink and lack of sleep had resulted in hallucinations. But as he heard the sound of wings and the tell-tale roar of an infuriated dragon coupled with the screams of the guards as they drew the arrows to their bows, he knew that the great red beast, Odahviing, had returned. At Odahviing's side flew a smaller dragon, shining gold and terrible even in the dim morning light. His body moved as if controlled by a different brain, a mind suddenly sober and sharp as he clambered quickly down from the roof. How he managed it without injury would forever remain a mystery, but though he landed on the ground with an undignified <em>thump<em> and sprawl of the limbs, he was on his feet again with little attention paid to the bruises he'd likely have in the morning.

For he'd seen something in the dragon's claws that stopped his heart and he knew that if he did not act quickly, all might yet be lost. The hiss of arrows firing upward mingled with the shouts of the guards, panicked cries: _A monster! Where is the Dragonborn_? _Kill the beast! Kill it! It's the great dragon she trapped on the palace porch! It's here for revenge!_ Even so, the two dragons did not breathe fire, did not swoop to attack: instead, they wheeled above the Wind District, evading the arrows with contemptuous ease, Odahviing still delicately holding his burden. Vilkas caught a flash of white there. A limp arm, inked.

"Don't shoot!" he heard himself yelling. "DON'T SHOOT! _Lower your weapons_!"

The authoritative roar distracted them just enough so that in the pause in missiles, Odahviing landed heavily on the stairs, a little unbalanced, for he could use only his powerful hind legs. In his forepaws, he held a broken body, bloodied and burnt, its white armor stained red and black with filth. Above them, the golden dragon wheeled in circles still, standing guard above him if any human were fool enough to rush at him in his vulnerability. "_Meyye_," he growled. "I bring your _Dovahkiin_ at her request, and for her sake I will not kill you for your temerity." And as the guards ran forward, swords drawn, Odahviing turned his attention on Vilkas, who stood frozen, his fists clenched and white-knuckled. "You. _Dovahkiin grohiiki._ Take her now. _Rek ahst miraad se_ _dinok_."

Though he could not understand the language of the dragon, he got the general implication: the limp body in the dragon's claws bore little resemblance to the woman he knew in life. But though his feet were still unsteady, his opened his arms and the dragon tipped Sigrid into them with surprising gentleness. Her face was slack and still and she hung like a rag doll in his grip. As he watched, the two dragons took to the air again, the smaller of the two calling, "_Lahney, Dovahkiin_! _Lovaasi ni zeim!_" The guards, too stunned by the strange turn of events, did not even fire arrows after them, and eventually, the great wings took them outside the reach of weapons, high in the sky where their giant forms looked small as hawks.

In the long and terrible night of prayer and hopeless wishing, he had not truly thought to see her again, alive or dead. And now he could see only the terrible battered face, feel only the dead weight of her body. Something inside of him howled, but for once it was not the beast-blood: no, this was only the man, grief-stricken and terrified and unsure of the future. A man who could still lose a woman he loved intensely, frighteningly. The guards parted for him, two lines of men and women paying respect to a fallen hero. _A hero_, he thought furiously, _the last thing she ever would have wanted_. Someone opened the door of the Temple of Kynareth for him, and then he was inside and yelling: "Danica! DANICA!"

The priestess of Kynareth must have slept lightly, for she was already on her feet, emerging from her small chamber in a long night-robe. "Vilkas?" she asked, pulling her robe more tightly around her. The noise had woken the sick farmer and wounded soldier, and their moans of pain punctuated the strange evening. "What is it? What's wrong?" And then she saw the terrible burden he bore, and instantly, she was moving into action. "Well, what are you waiting for, man? Set her down here," she ordered him, pointing to a spare bed.

He did so, moving as mechanically as the wheel of a mill.

"_Gently_," the Priestess admonished him. "Help me to get her armor off so I can examine her. From the look of things, she's near death—this is going to be a difficult healing, and a longer recovery. If it takes."

"You might not be able to heal her?" Vilkas demanded, as he knelt next to Sigrid's unconscious form and began to unbuckle her armor. Though he moved as gently as possible, to pull off her chest plate, he was forced to lift her body again, and though he thought he might have imagined it, he could almost hear her heart beating faster as he touched her. The more they exposed of her body, as Danica simply cut her ruined clothing off of her body, peeling it away to view the extent of the damage, the worse the wounds seemed, and the more he could feel the fear and fury overtaking him. She was covered in burns and bruises; bone broke through one of her forearms, while her foot, once they'd gotten her boots off, hung limp at an unnatural angle. He growled, low in his throat. If the World-Eater wasn't dead he would have found some way to kill it himself. If she died now after all of this, he would never be able to forgive himself.

"With injuries this severe," Danica was saying, surprising him out of his reverie, "one never knows. Sometimes the body is so exhausted and battered that it doesn't have the energy to respond to Restoration magic. I'm a priestess and a mage—not a miracle worker. Sometimes even magic is not enough, especially when the internal injuries are as complicated as I suspect hers are."

In Vilkas' eyes, however, she lied. For what she managed next was nothing short of miraculous: after several minutes of attempting to use her hands and magic alone to heal the Dragonborn, Sigrid's heart, which had beaten sluggishly since she'd returned to them, stopped completely. Her chest fell still and breathless. Vilkas swore, his fists clenched and though he longed to reach out for her, he held still and allowed Danica to do her work, through an almost superhuman effort.

The priestess remained calm and serene as always as she took a quick sip of a potion brewed to replenish her magic reserves, and another to fortify her spells, and set to her work, her hands glowing with warm, golden light that sank beneath the skin of Sigrid's chest. Even as she did so, she leaned forward, pinching the warrior's nose shut, her other hand lifting her head up. With a deep breath, she leaned down to Sigrid's mouth, sealing it with her own and breathing long and full, once then twice, into her mouth. Immediately after that, Danica knelt at her side, fingers brushing along the woman's chest to find the bottom of her ribcage, setting the heel of her hand on the breastbone. Her other hand, still glowing with the warmth of her magic, rested atop it, fingers locked. As she leaned forward, she pressed down hard and fast, before relaxing the pressure just enough to allow Sigrid's chest to return to its normal position, before continuing the compressions, quick and sure of herself, over and over again, until the woman gasped and breathed again.

Sigrid's eyes flew open once, and they were wide and terrified, her arms flailing in a panic, almost knocking the priestess to the ground.

"Shh," Danica said, ducking the reflexive blow, totally non-plussed. "You're safe. We're here. We've got you."

He lurched forward, about to open his mouth to say something, to tell her he was there. That he would not leave her. That she would live through this. What came out instead was slurred thick with terror and the remnants of alcohol: "Shor's bones, woman, don't fucking _die_."

But she could not hear him. Sigrid's eyes, unseeing and blank, closed again, and she lapsed once more into unconsciousness.

It was touch and go throughout the night.

Danica did not move from Sigrid's side, and he did not move from the priestess, rising only to fetch her extra potions, poultices, and stitching as needed, to help her wash Sigrid's filthy body in the off-moments. She was too weak to respond right away to the healing spells, the damage had run too deep. And so Danica began to take care of what she could with her hands alone: setting the broken arms and leg, giving the bones a clear path to regrow again when the restoration magic took hold. Sigrid's heart stopped again once more, and Vilkas' almost did too: he had not realized how used to the noise of it he had become, that faint, steady, brave tattoo in the back of his hearing, until it was gone. But Danica, unflappably, repeated the breathing and chest compressions until it started again, weak but sure. Until her lungs filled with air once more on their own. Though he attempted to keep himself occupied with small tasks, like fetching whatever Danica needed or providing the muscle to set the broken limbs in place, he found that even such things did not help the overwhelming feeling of helplessness that had settled on his shoulders, that kindled a darker rage in him. Not at her—but at himself.

The news spread through Whiterun of the Dragonborn's return, but curious onlookers were barred from the Temple. The alone Companions were allowed in to see their fallen Harbinger, and stood respectfully to the side. Ria took the time to break away and pray at the shrine of Kynareth in the corner, but the others were battle-hardened enough to know that the gods had little to do with such things. Farkas stood, gripping his brother's shoulder, as though by the force of his hands alone, he could lend him some of his own strength. Through the brief visitation, they were studiously silent, though Ria occasionally let out a little sniff as she looked with a trembling lip from Sigrid to Vilkas and back. Velwyn stood there, too, his sharp-featured face pale and solemn as he clutched Tilma's hand. Eventually, with a small wail, Ria ran from the room, sobbing, "But it's just so _sad_." After that, Danica shooed them out of the temple so she could continue her work uninterrupted. The brothers alone stayed.

Farkas turned to Vilkas with a frown. "Get some rest, brother. I'll stay here to help the Priestess and keep an eye on Sigrid."

"No," Vilkas said sharply. "I'm not leaving."

"As you will," Farkas said, then added, "for now. I'll be back."

Eventually, Danica managed to drag her back to the point of stability, enough so that the priestess could take a brief rest to replenish her own energy. Vilkas, however, could not sleep, could not leave her side. Though exhausted, he sat stubbornly by the bedside, in case something happened in the night. In case her heart stopped again. Though worried about hurting her, he took her cold hand in his own, feeling it slowly warm between his fingers. He could not find the words to express what he wanted to say, and so he merely held her hand, lightly, so that he would not further damage the broken fingers he had just reset, and found himself praying for the first time in many months, to Shor and Ysmir and Kynareth and Arkay, to keep her safe as she wandered between the realms.

Day had broken in earnest now, and he could hear the bustle outside, the rumors that once again spread through Whiterun: that the Dragonborn had been brought home from Sovngarde, borne aloft by two dragon-slaves, rising again with the dawn. He attempted to ignore the loud calls, the joyous cries at a victory that had come at such a price. Danica rose, dressed now in her priestess' robes, looking as calm and collected as though she hadn't been fighting desperately to save Sigrid's life for the last several hours. She walked smoothly over to his side.

"No change while I was gone?" she asked.

"No," he replied.

The woman leaned forward, lifting Sigrid's eyelid with one hand, a finger shining with mage-light pointing towards it with the other. The woman's pupil shrank, then dilated as she took the light away and released the lid. "This is a good sign," the priestess explained to him. "If her pupils had been fully dilated, or fixed, it means that her mind had been damaged by the times that her heart stopped."

"Her mind…?" he demanded.

"Tsk," Danica said briskly, her hands already glowing with restoration magic, "it's unlikely, at this point, that there will _be_ any damage, and if there is, it will be small things: a short attention span or some memory loss. I have her stable now, with the addition of a sleeping potion so that she might rest through the night without panicking herself. She should wake soon, especially since it seems as though the magic is doing more good than it was earlier." And she busied herself in checking the stitches she'd made earlier that morning.

With a sigh, he looked down at her, and as he did, her eyes opened.

* * *

><p>She opened her eyes again.<p>

The pain floated in the distance, barred by a cloud of some kind of healing potion. She tried to sit up, but strong hands kept her down. Though she struggled, she had as little strength as a newborn babe, and it was laughably easy for the man to keep her there. She opened her mouth but for a moment she had trouble forming the words. A sudden fear gripped her. _What had happened_…? Disoriented, she attempted to swim back towards full consciousness. Slowly, small details penetrated the fog in her head: she was naked, but wrapped beneath a blanket. She was clean. She lay in a bed instead of the cold ice of the Throat of the World. And she knew that once the potion wore off, everything would hurt.

She was alive, for all she felt as though she'd been kicked in the chest by a dragon.

A woman was saying, "And _you_, my friend, should get some rest."

"Not yet," the man replied, a stubborn voice. She knew it. _Vilkas_.

The world came back into focus then, and she saw him for the first time. He was covered in filth and blood—she realized that much of it must have come from her. She'd ruined his shirt, Sigrid noted, with a slightly hysterical laugh bubbling up from her chest. He looked much as she'd felt the day after the Harbinger's ceremony, hungover, beat up, and wan. His face was pale and dark circles shadowed his eyes, and a gash and bruise decorated the right side of his cheek and forehead, and he stank of old alcohol and filthy clothes. "You look _awful_," she managed to say. Her voice was weak and far-away, as though heard her mouth had been stuffed with layers of gauze. She could not remember the terrible flight from the Throat of the World. After she had Shouted for Odahviing, everything was a blank.

He was instantly at attention, the dearly familiar gaze fixed intently on her, though her words had turned the corner of his mouth up in a reluctantly smile. "You look worse," he told her, his hands taking hers again.

"I'm sorry—" she attempted to say.

"No," he cut her off. "Don't apologize. Rest. I'm… just relieved you're alive."

She was shaking her head, for even though she was not quite at Arkay's door, the possibility remained that she might yet die. For all Danica's skill, the pounding she had taken was like nothing she had yet experienced. Though she could not move her fingers, she tried to grip his hand tightly in hers. "No. Have to tell you. _Love_ you—couldn't die there—not without—"

His hand, holding hers, warming her cold skin, tightened. "I know," he said, voice low and rough. "I know, Sigrid. I—" Even now, she could tell the words were hard for him to articulate. "I—love you. When I thought you were dead, I…"

At her side, hands still glowing with magic, Danica had the grace to cough, reminding them that there were others in the room. Sigrid looked sheepishly at her, and winced. Even with a potion to manage the pain, it was not enough to beat it back. She lay back in the bed, and for once, relaxed, and allowed Danica to drip another potion down her throat, surrendering to her ministrations. As she swallowed, the pain once again receded, though not totally. Mostly, she felt pleasantly warm and sleepy, as though she floated on a cloud made of down pillows. "I saw them, Vilkas…" she muttered, voice slurring.

"You saw who?" he asked.

"Everyone… my da, my ma… Kodlak… Ysgramor…" she yawned. "I wish you could have been there. Almos' told him about your hist'ry lessons…"

And then she fell asleep, Danica's potion having done its work.

* * *

><p>Strangely, her declaration, though also delivered under the influence of some kind of drug, lightened the burden he'd been carrying. The sudden calm look on her face when he'd responded, the slow smile that spread across her bruised lips, would stay with him for a long time, whatever else happened. Though he would have stayed with her indeterminately, after a certain amount of waiting, Farkas and Torvar returned.<p>

"Brother," Farkas said, arms folded across his chest. "You stink."

"Immaterial," Vilkas said gruffly.

"You need to eat," Farkas added.

"Not yet," Vilkas said.

"You're not helping anyone, least of all the Harbinger, by killing yourself," Farkas pointed out, reasonably as always.

"C'mon, Vilkas," Torvar cut in. "Even I like to eat something after a bender."

"I'm not leaving her side, brother," Vilkas said curtly.

"I was afraid of that," Farkas said, with a grin. "Well, in that case, we're just going to have to carry you out."

"You are _not_ fighting in my Temple," Danica Pure-Spring snapped, instantly appearing at the bedside. "Not when there are such sick patients here." She fixed Vilkas with an indomitable gaze. "Go, Companion. We'll be here when you return. I swear on the Lady Kyne."

Although he followed Farkas and Torvar reluctantly back to Jorrvaskr, even he had to admit that it was a relief to take a break from what he had thought a deathbed vigil, to relax in warm water and clean the blood from his chest, the filth from his clothing. To fill his empty stomach, take a healing potion of his own to dull the headache that had pounded behind his eyes since the night before, though he could not quite bring himself to sleep. He emerged feeling like a new man, but almost immediately, he knew that he would return to the Temple almost immediately.

Outside, Mikael the bard had evidently purchased a new lute from Belethor, and was singing a song for an appreciative crowd, crowing, that it was dedicated to the Dragonborn. Vilkas only caught snatches of the first verse (_Alduin's wings, they did darken the sky, his roar fury's fire and his scales sharpened scythes…_) before he stalked into the Temple once more, shutting the door on the party atmosphere. News of the World-Eater's demise was still celebrated; even though they had all heard the unearthly Shouting, no one had quite dared to believe it, not until the Dragonborn had been returned to the city. It was with relief, however, that he left it behind him. He could not celebrate something that had left a shield-sibling so broken.

Sigrid was still sleeping when he came in. Danica was not at her side, which he took to be a good sign. He sat down once more at her bedside, on a lower bench the priestess had thoughtfully placed there, and leaned forward to rest his elbows on the bed. As he leaned forward, he did not realize exactly how exhausted he was until sleep stole up on him like a thief.

* * *

><p>When next she woke, she saw a familiar dark head resting on the edge of her bed. Vilkas had fallen asleep while sitting at the bedside, face buried in the crook of his arm, and the warmth that gripped her had nothing to do with the drugs coursing through her system. Careful not to wake him, she tried to sit up, but could not: her arms were immobilized still, the bone slowly healing together with each application of magic, and she could not put pressure on them. Even attempting to use her torso to lever herself up resulted in intense pain, from broken ribs and the heart that had been jolted back into beating only a few hours before. Her breath emerged in a squeak of shock at the sharpness of it. The helplessness of her situation enraged and embarrassed her all at once, and the shame of it prickling behind her eyes.<p>

Danica, who had caught the movement out of the corner of her eye, was already at her side. "No, no," she whispered, also careful not to wake the sleeping warrior at the bedside. "Calm yourself, Harbinger. Don't try to move just yet. Your body has only begun responding, _truly_ responding to the restoration magic, and I do not wish you to injure yourself once more."

"It's humiliating," Sigrid muttered.

"Oh aye," Danica replied softly, a small twinkle in her eye. "And you aren't the first big, strong warrior that's come across my doorstep. And not the first determined to do everything himself. _That_ man ended up on bed rest for an entire month after trying to stand too soon, so I'll thank you not to follow his lead. In fact, he's still here." And she pointed one finger at the soldier across the room, who, true to her word, was tossing and moaning on his bed.

Sigrid opened and abruptly shut her mouth. It was true; the priestess did have a point. "I am feeling a little better," she whispered, "I'm _starving_."

"Only liquids for now," Danica replied reprovingly, as she stood to move towards the little back room, and Sigrid groaned—she wanted a venison roast and potatoes, not the bowl of soup she could already see the woman bringing her. In the end, however, it was likely a good idea, for she had a difficult time keeping even the thin broth down.

A few hours later, Vilkas woke again, suddenly, with a start, eyes bleary and face confused. He calmed once he realized where he was, and resumed his seated watch at her bedside.

"You can sleep in Jorrvaskr, you know," she told him. "I'm sure as hell not going anywhere."

He said nothing, but shook his head, and remained steadfastly in his seat at her side. They sat in silence for long moments, and Sigrid wondered whether his mind raced with as many things that he wanted to say as hers did. She had several things she wished to ask him, but no easy way to say them. For the time being, she was content merely to sit in silence, eyes closed, drifting in and out of sleep. Though she was already feeling a little stronger, the restoration magic's demands on her body, to produce new skin, new bits of her insides, new shards of bone, had taken much out of her.

"Kodlak is in Sovngarde, then?" he said, after a while.

"Aye," she said, and closed her eyes. "Finally in Sovngarde." As he sat beside her, she began to relate to him what had happened after she had slipped him the potion. The mad flight on the dragon, the slog through Skuldafn. Seeing her parents again. Her voice broke as she related that last bit, and was glad for the warmth of his hands on hers. "It's just hard to believe that it's… over so quickly. I feel a little… lost. If that makes sense."

"It makes sense," he said. "You—_we've_—been constantly on the move, working towards an end, almost since you arrived."

"I never thought I'd live through it," she muttered, and the sudden pained look on his face turned her stomach over. "I was prepared to die. I feel… so strange to be here now. I've outlived my own destiny."

"But you did live," he said staunchly, "and you will. And we will move on from here. But you must promise me one thing."

"What's that?" she said.

"This is the _last_ time you do something that stupid."

She laughed until it turned into a racking cough. "That, I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to do, m'dear."

* * *

><p>After a week in the Temple of Kynareth, and a week of Vilkas sleeping at her side, Danica pronounced her well enough to be moved to Jorrvaskr, though she cautioned them both sharply that the Harbinger not overextend herself. This proved more difficult than it sounded at first, and Vilkas found himself constantly having to follow Sigrid around the hall, preventing her from wearing her armor, training with Velwyn, or otherwise doing things which risked opening old wounds or causing a rupture of something inside. Though she was stronger every day, small things reminded her constantly that she was not at full strength. First it was tiring easily, having to sit when she walked for too long. Then it was the pains in the night, physical and otherwise. He held her in the night when she woke sweating, reliving the moment in her mind when Alduin had crushed her beneath his weight.<p>

She did not take being an invalid, however ambulatory she might have been, very well. Naturally a restless woman, Sigrid obviously longed to be out in the field, to see the true results of her victory. And Vilkas, determined that she would not do further harm to herself, found that he had been cast in the role of unwitting jailor. Despite the admission of love earlier, it did not make it any easier, and she could not forgive him for caring for her. She turned on him furiously one day, and he could hear the frustration trembling in her voice. "I just can't bloody stand it, Vilkas, being cooped up like this! I need to go _out_."

"You'll be able to do it soon," he said, shaking his head. "You don't want to end up like that wounded soldier, now, do you?"

Sigrid sighed, defeated but not soothed. "No," she muttered. "But neither do I want to spend my remaining days lurking below ground like Kodlak did."

"Nor will you," he replied. "Even Kodlak knew when to take the time to tend his wounds, in his youth." A sneaking suspicion gripped him, and he caught her wrist in his. "When this is all over, Sigrid… will you stay? Or will you be off again into the unknown? Seeking power and glory?" He could not keep the slight hint of bitterness from his voice; though she had admitted that she loved him, that did not mean that her personality would suddenly transform overnight. _Will you leave me_? was the unspoken question.

"Of course not," she said, sounding offended, though she did not pull away. Instead, she moved closer to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Vilkas, I'm the Harbinger, and I can't just abandon the Companions. Not when I have so many plans for us. Not when war with the Thalmor seems not unavoidable, but _imminent_. Not when this is my _home_." She pulled away, and raised one eyebrow. Though the bruises and cuts on her face had mostly healed, a new scar cut through the left brow. "Come now, darling," she drawled. "Surely you don't think so little of me?"

"I didn't know what to think," he admitted, eyes narrowed slightly. And asked the question she was waiting for: "What plans?"

"We're diminished in numbers right now," Sigrid replied, voice warm with excitement, "but I think that between you—the man who dueled Ulfric Stormcloak to surrender—and me, the Dragonborn—at the head of things, we shouldn't have any problems finding potential recruits. We can truly bring the Companions back to their former glory, to make us worthy of the name Ysgramor gave us. Once we've got them trained, I'd like to rotate the assignments so that two or three shield-siblings at any one time in each of the major cities, to better respond quickly to time-sensitive jobs. And horses. We're buying some gods-damned horses," she finished, shaking her head. "After all of that running back and forth for the war, I think at _least_ three is a good investment."

He found that he was grinning, a breath he hadn't been aware that he was holding exhaled. "You have given this some thought."

"Of course," she said, and grinned back at him, her fingers slipping lower, dipping beneath the line of his belt. "I'm the _Harbinger_. And there will have to be plenty of time for lessons in history and honor, I think… You may have to motivate me to learn, however. I'm not feeling terribly studious these days."

"That, I can do, Harbinger," he said, shivering at the warm touch of her hand.

"Good," she replied, with a predatory smile. "Let's start now." And she pushed him backward through the doors of her quarters.


	37. Endings

_The mind knows alone what is nearest the heart  
>and sees where the soul is turned.<em>

—The Poetic Edda, from _Hávamál, _translated by Olive Bray

* * *

><p>In the end, it took another week of constantly choking down healing potions and repeated trips to the Temple of Kynareth for Sigrid to feel more like her old self. It wasn't perfect: she could still feel the dull ache of newly-grown bone, the sharp pangs of internal organs that hadn't fully settled into their new spaces yet. She occasionally found her attention wandering more quickly than it used to, or that she would forget small things, like where she'd left her sword five minutes ago. When she brought these concerns to Danica Pure-Spring, the priestess assured her that it was normal, though there was a chance that both her diminished attention span and the aches would be permanent. "You are always welcome to return for healing," she'd said. "Though of course, there is a limit to what I am able to do. Some wounds are too deep even for magic to touch." But ah, she knew that all too well.<p>

After the two weeks of recovery and careful monitoring, however, Danica proclaimed her well enough to return to training, though she warned her against full combat. "Not just yet," she said. "There's still a danger that after all of the healing you've done, new wounds won't respond to my magic for a little while. You can build up a resistance to it, if you are Healed too much, too often."

"But Sister," Sigrid protested, "I'm a warrior. Combat is what I _do_."

"Surely," Danica replied dryly, "after all you've been through thus far, you can take another _week_ or two away from the sword."

To Sigrid's dismay Vilkas had spoken to Danica secretly at some point during the week, because when she tried to get around the subject of the fighting ban, he already knew of the prohibition. Though she scowled at him, she did not argue. Things between them seemed to have reached a strange, easy comfort, and she did not want to upset the delicate balance. In the interim of her recovery, he had gradually begun moving his things into the Harbinger's quarters. They spent more time there now than his own room, because the bed was larger, because the rooms were more secluded and private. First it was spare clothes, so that he could change in the morning without having to sneak through the hallways. Then it was his books and papers, because he would sometimes read them before falling asleep with her, and forget to put them back. And then it was his armor. She said nothing about it, merely fit his things in with her own meager possessions, gladly ceding the real estate of the bookshelf to him: Kodlak had had a few volumes, specifically of _Songs of the Return_ and other histories, but she herself did not own any books except for a copy of _The Book of the Dragonborn_ that she had taken with her from Sky Haven Temple. It was strangely natural, though, to have his clothes and blades mixed amongst hers; both of their sets of armor set up on mannequins in the corner, ready for use.

None of the other Companions remarked upon it, though it must have been noticeable once Vilkas' messy room was clean and soon, rather empty. She was secretly relieved. She had not wanted to explain herself, even to them, especially not now. Between them, nothing had changed: they still trained together, still fought together, still slept together each night, but neither had brought up the declarations of love or her marriage proposal again. She did not even know what he had done with the amulet he'd taken from her, the night of the Harbinger's ceremony, and she could not bring herself to ask. Did not want to disturb the pleasantness of the life they were building together.

She threw herself, instead, into the running of Jorrvaskr. She and Vilkas spent many uncomfortable hours, with Velwyn beside them, as he tried to teach her his system of keeping the accounts. In addition to her trouble reading, she had difficulty with numbers, seeing them printed out on a page. When she read them, and tried to add or subtract them on other pieces of paper, her mind arranged the numbers in a different order, or failed to process the combinations. Frustrated, she threw up her hands and exclaimed, "_Why_ do I need to do this? What on earth do I have you two for then?"

Velwyn grinned. "Well, I'd be happy to help you, Harbinger."

"She should learn it for herself," Vilkas told him sternly.

"Oh aye," the boy replied, grinning. "For the same reason you've got me helping Eorlund, I know. But surely the Harbinger's time is worth, um, more than mine?"

"I knew there was a reason I keep you around," Sigrid told him, eliciting another huge, broad grin that took up his entire face. The boy was fitting in well, she mused, examining him again. He had settled into Vilkas' training regime without argument now, and it showed. Though he had always been wiry, fetching ingots and tanning leather for Eorlund at the Skyforge, and the running and weight training, had given the boy a solidity that he had previously lacked. Most of all, however, he looked _happy_: the eager face with which he presented the world a constant. Even though she had not been thrilled at first to find him on the steps of Jorrvaskr, Sigrid had to admit that his cheery, piping voice brought a certain levity that Jorrvaskr previously lacked.

Especially since, now that the news had spread across Skyrim of Alduin's defeat and Sigrid's role in it, as well as the end of the war, Whiterun was currently inundated with curious visitors. They lingered outside of Jorrvaskr, the braver of them coming up the stairs to inquire about audiences with the Harbinger. Eventually the Companions set Njada up on a chair outside, letting her sharp tongue do the work of scaring the visitors away. The problem was, of course, that these visitors did not just wish to gawk, they almost always had some request for the Dragonborn, as though she did not have her hands full already. The requests ranged from the bizarre—a Khajiit who wanted her to sit for a sculpture—to the mundane—villagers who wished to have her personally clear bandits for them, or find their lost family heirlooms, or look into spates of disappearances. Some of them she accepted as regular Companions commissions, assigning them to her shield-siblings, some she turned away, and when the sculptor particularly became persistent, she unleashed the full brunt of her rage upon them. He ran with his tail between his legs.

The requests weren't the only problem, however. The Jarls of each Hold had sent formal acknowledgements as well, and as Vilkas read the letters to her, she scowled, realizing that the polite missives were not just polite missives: they were discreet reminders that the kingsmoot neared, and that try as she might to avoid politics, politics reached out with grasping fingers to find _her_. She dictated letters that Vilkas wrote, politely declining their invitations to visit their hold capitals. _Sigrid Frostborn, Dragonborn and Harbinger of the Companions, sends her most sincere regrets…_

"I hate it," she told him one night, as they lay in her bed in the dark. "Surely Kodlak didn't have to deal with this level of—of _presumption_."

"He didn't," Vilkas replied. "It was more in the normal run of things. Occasionally, an old comrade in arms would come to the door, sometimes needing assistance, sometimes just wanting to catch up. But never like this."

Sigrid grumbled under her breath as she propped her chin up on her hand. "I don't know how much of this I can take," she said. "I hate feeling like I'm some kind of prize to be won. I don't want to get dragged into all of this again. I don't want to be Skyrim's glorified errand girl! I don't _care_ about feuds between Jarls in holds I'll never spend more than a day visiting!"

"It may yet die down," Vilkas said, though he lied. He rubbed her back, and she relaxed beneath the ministrations of his fingers, content for the moment to ignore the fact that even she knew that it would not. She had been so concentrated on defeating Alduin that she hadn't given a thought to what would happen after she survived. She found that, in the dark with his arms around her, there were benefits too, to living.

"I can only hope," she muttered. "If it keeps up I don't know how I'm going to get _anything_ done."

"And your plan to recruit new Companions?"

She yawned, and squirmed closer to him. "I've already got one in mind. I'll take care of it tomorrow."

In the morning, true to her word, Sigrid made her way to Breezehome for the first time since she had installed Lydia in it. The key was heavy in her hand as she unlocked the door and went inside, to her surprise, finding that the little home was warm and well kept, a fire roaring merrily in the firepit, dried frost mirriam and elves' ears hanging from the ceiling, next to dried rabbits and salmon. At the sound of the door, Lydia was already coming down the stairs, dressed in her armor and a hand on the hilt of her sword.

"Honor to you, my thane?" she said questioningly, almost as if she did not quite believe that Sigrid had crossed the threshold.

"Hello, Lydia," Sigrid said, feeling exceedingly awkward. "How do you like the new home?"

"It is… pleasant," Lydia said, the thin line of her lips tense. "If somewhat… quiet for my taste."

"How would you like a more—interesting—assignment?" Sigrid asked.

"How do you mean?" Lydia asked, and the suspicion on her face almost made Sigrid flush with guilt.

"The Companions are recruiting again," Sigrid said, steeling herself for an argument, "and I think you'd be a good fit. At the very least you'd be able to get out and fight a bit rather than sitting around guarding a dusty old home that no one's using. That is, if you don't mind moving into Jorrvaskr, though of course, you don't have to if you wish to stay here." Curses, but the verbal vomiting just kept on and on. "I know I haven't been a particularly—good thane, but you don't deserve to be punished for it—"

"My thane," Lydia interrupted firmly. "You don't need to go on. I will follow you to Sovngarde if necessary, of course I'll follow you up the damn road to Jorrvaskr."

Sigrid raised her eyebrows, surprised by Lydia's ready acceptance. "Truly?"

"Anything that gets a sword in my hand and myself on the battlefield again," Lydia said, with a disparaging snort. "Breezehome is lovely, but I'm not cut out for the quiet life—I am your sword and your shield."

"Well," Sigrid said briskly. "That's settled, then. You'll come back with me to Jorrvaskr."

"As you wish, my thane," Lydia said, though for once there was a hint of true enthusiasm in her voice.

* * *

><p>Vilkas found himself settling into the new routines with surprising ease. Though he had been a little surprised when Sigrid came back to Jorrvaskr with Lydia trailing warily behind her, it turned out to have been a wise choice. Lydia fit in well with the Companions, though when the whelp was ordered to fetch swords or shields as part of her hazing, she only sighed, rolled her eyes, and drawled, "I am <em>sworn<em> to carry your burdens…" Soon, she was fast friends with Njada, bonding over sarcastic quips and battling in the training grounds. _You've created a monster_, Vilkas mouthed to Sigrid one day, and she grinned at him, bright and brilliant.

Not, of course, that everything was normal. He found himself, more often than not, running interference for the Harbinger, fending off curious onlookers and favor-seekers alike. It got to the point where he was _glad_ that she came to him and said, "Vilkas, I've _got_ to get out of Jorrvaskr for a bit. Will you come with me to High Hrothgar? I need to speak with the Greybeards."

"Anywhere, Harbinger," he said.

Being on the road again felt good. Better than good. Even the long trek up to the Greybeards' fortress was welcome; he had spent so long at Jorrvaskr that the fresh mountain air alone would have been worth it. Sigrid seemed to agree; despite her solemn mood as they'd set out from the mead hall, she seemed to be in lighter spirits the higher they climbed: at one point, she ducked behind a rock, ostensibly to relieve herself. But as Vilkas continued on his way, a snowball came flying from behind her hiding spot and hit him square in the back of the head, an explosion of cold ice. "Why, you little—" he growled, whirling on his heel, and another snowball promptly hit him in the face and her laughter echoed in the wind. This sparked a brief, furious snowball fight that ended when she tackled him to the ground, and then they were wrestling in the snow, and he found himself laughing as he hadn't laughed in many weeks.

"Do you yield?" she demanded breathlessly, a handful of snow lifted to dump in his face. Her cheeks were pink from cold and exertion and water dripped from her disheveled hair.

He looked up and met her eyes, and was surprised, again, by the myriad of expressions that seemed to reside there. She lowered her hand, unable to look away, and he swallowed hard, and reached for her—it might have turned into something else, there by the roadside, but for footsteps crunching in the snow.

Instantly, she had rolled off of him, and they both rose hastily from the snow. The female pilgrim passing by gave them a suspicious look, but did not stop to ask questions. Sigrid shot him a conspiratorial glance, and he found himself grinning again. In retrospect, probably idiotically. _Get yourself together, man_, he thought angrily to himself. _You're a warrior, not some… schoolboy. _They said nothing to each other for the rest of the trek, and he had sobered much in mood by the time they entered High Hrothgar, and Sigrid moved cautiously through the hallways, searching for the Greybeards. They found Arngeir praying in the long hallway before one of the windows.

"Dragonborn!" he greeted her, with a bow, and then his intelligent eyes were searching her face, with a worried frown. "I can see it in your eyes—you've seen the land of the gods and returned. Does this mean… it is done? Is Alduin truly defeated? Where has Paarthurnax gone?"

"Alduin is as dead as I can make him," Sigrid said. "But he's an aspect of Akatosh—is he really _gone_? I didn't… absorb his soul," she said, finally admitting something that had been bothering her since she could think more clearly about the terrible battle on the fields of the dead. "Paarthurnax said he was going to spread the Way of the Voice. I know not when he will return."

"Perhaps Alduin is gone, perhaps not. Dragons are not like normal mortal creatures and he is unique even among dragons. He may be permitted to return at the end of time to fulfill his destiny as World-Eater, but that is for the gods to decide. You have done your part… then it is done at last," Arngeir mused. "Perhaps it was all worth it, in the end. You've shown yourself mighty, both in voice and deed. In order to defeat Alduin, you've gained mastery of dreadful weapons. Now it is up to you to decide what to do with your power and skull. Will you be a hero whose name is remembered throughout the ages? Or will your name be a curse to future generations? Or will you merely fade from history unremembered?"

She swallowed, and muttered, "I didn't want any of that."

"Regardless, you cannot run from your fate. The chapter with Alduin was only the beginning, I fear… We are all in your debt, Dragonborn," the Master said, one eyebrow raised. "Let the Way of the Voice be your guide, and the path of wisdom will be clear to you. Breath and focus, Dragonborn. Your future lies before you."

He watched her carefully for signs of faltering, signs of insecurity, but she merely nodded. How far they had come, since the days when she'd taken on the beastblood solely to escape her responsibilities as Dragonborn, and he could feel his chest swell with pride. And he—the more he thought about it, the more he began to think that perhaps it might soon be time to return to Ysgramor's Tomb. With each passing day, the fury that had driven him to vengeance in Driftshade Refuge faded. As they went back down the 7000 steps, this time, they stopped to read each stone, and as they did, he thought of Kodlak and his hope that one day, they would all be cured. Of the man that would be left behind without the wolf. Of the new life that he was slowly building for himself, not cut adrift from the shadowy ropes of his past, but not tied down by them, either.

Perhaps it was almost time.

But not yet.

His comfortable routine, however, of helping Sigrid manage Jorrvaskr and occasionally foraying out on short jobs: routine rescues and intimidations, the occasional animal extermination, was soon shattered. Such peaces could never last, and as the pale spring leaves unfurled, darkening into summer fullness, change came for him yet again. This time, it was not Sigrid that precipitated an upheaval in his life, but his younger brother. Farkas approached him one day as he practiced his sword forms, careful to keep just out of reach of the whirling blade. "Vilkas," he said, by way of greeting.

Vilkas lowered the sword, with the sinking suspicion that he knew where this was headed. "Brother," he said cautiously.

"You've been in a particularly good mood lately," Farkas said, arms folded across his massive chest. There was a hint of accusation in the words.

"Things have been going well," Vilkas said, and then added, "In Jorrvaskr, that is."

"I've been thinking…"

"Well _that's_ always dangerous," Njada drawled, as she walked past them.

Vilkas shot her a warning look, then turned his attention back to Farkas. "What have you been thinking?"

"About the Tomb… don't you think it's time?"

"You think it is, evidently," Vilkas said mildly. His thoughts had turned to the cure, to say otherwise would be lying. But it felt strange to discuss it in daylight, so matter-of-factly.

Farkas nodded, and the corner of his mouth turned down. "With each day passing I think about Kodlak. What he would've wanted. Every day that goes by is another day with our souls stained."

"Will you go, then, to the Tomb?"

"I told you, brother," Farkas said with a grin, and he reached out to ruffle Vilkas' hair, grinning even wider as Vilkas smacked his hand away. "I'm not going without you. The question is: are _you_ ready?"

To his surprise, the answer was easy: "Yes. I'm ready."

"Good," Farkas said. "I was planning to drag you if you didn't want to go."

"No need to go that far," Vilkas said dryly. "Let me make sure the arrangements first."

It did not take long: by now, between the two of them, he and Sigrid had the system set in place so that it was relatively easy to shift the responsibility, for a time. Aela would step temporarily into the role of problem-solver, with Velwyn at her side to help manage the flow of income. Finally, all that remained was to find the last necessary piece for the quest. Sigrid looked up as he entered from where she sat at her desk, carefully oiling her armor. "Hello, Vilkas," she greeted him, with one raised eyebrow. "You look… pensive. What's the problem?"

He snorted, but remained serious. "It's about Kodlak's final teaching," Vilkas said. "Farkas and I… I am ready to cleanse myself. That I might know glory in the afterlife. I've already made the proper arrangements. We leave shortly."

"Did you want me to come with you?" she asked, a little hesitantly, and he could not blame her. After what had happened the last time they journeyed together to the tomb, she was likely unsure whether they would even make it past the first few chambers.

"I would be honored for you to accompany me, Harbinger. You still bear a hear of the Glenmoril betrayers, yes? Then lead on. Back to the Tomb of Ysgramor. My soul is now prepared."

She said nothing, but rose from the chair, crossed the room, and kissed him, long and slow. When she finally pulled away and he opened his eyes, he saw that she smiled at him. "I'm rather damned proud of you, you know that?"

He could not find it in himself to say anything, and so he said nothing.

Aela refused to go with them, though Vilkas asked her: she told him firmly, "I will not give up Hircine's blessing. Not now, and not in the next world." But perhaps surprisingly, she sent both brothers on their way with a rough, sharp hug, a small blessing of her own. This time, the journey to the Tomb of Ysgramor was not such a grim affair. They knew that the cure worked—Sigrid was living proof of it—and though he felt some trepidation about giving up the beast-blood, the overwhelming feeling was relief. They spent much of the journey in silence, the brothers preoccupied with the upcoming visit, and Sigrid unwilling to break the solemnity of the occasion. Moving at such a fast pace, they made the journey in just under a full day, reaching the Tomb a few hours after sunset.

It was strange to realize, as they trudged up the snowy slopes, that all of these years of transformations, the pain of his body rearranging its bones on an almost nightly basis, the music of the hunt echoing through his veins like a siren song, would soon be ended. With all of the agonizing he had made over this choice throughout the preceding months, it felt strange to feel almost nothing, as though in preparation for what came, his body had numbed itself.

Once inside, Sigrid checked to make sure that the passageway she'd opened from the main chamber itself remained open. It was, and so they followed her down into the legendary tomb. Vilkas found himself silenced with awe, looking up at the high ceilings, the huge stone steps leading up to the grated cage that protected Ysgramor's mortal remains from tomb robbers. The stark grandeur of the room, with lit only by candles and the cold blue glow of magic rising from the fountain in the center of the hall, took his very breath. He glanced over and saw that Farkas, too, stared around him with a solemn face and silent mouth.

"Are you ready?" Sigrid asked, hefting the sack she'd been carrying with her that held two of the remaining three witch heads. "Who's first?"

He hesitated, just long enough for Farkas to step forward, as maddeningly confident as always. "I am, Harbinger."

As Vilkas watched, Sigrid reached into the sack with a grimace and drew one rotting, greasy head from its depths. Time had not been kind to the skull, and the skin slipped off of it even as she threw the disgusting artifact into the flame. With a flare of magic, Farkas doubled over with a grunt of pain, a ghostly, red-tinged form rising out of his body: the monstrous wolf rising from him as he fell to his knees beneath the weight of the magic tugging at him. Sigrid had already moved into action and Vilkas followed, the two warriors drawing their swords and facing down the beast. Farkas' wolf spirit lunged first for Vilkas, snarling. As he slashed down with his blade, he could feel the impact through the ghostly form, and the wolf lunged for him, barreling into his body and knocking him to the ground and one hand from the hilt. He punched it in the snout, even as Sigrid stabbed down with her sword, yelling to distract the thing.

On the ground, Farkas cried out and the wolf reared, roaring in pain. Vilkas shoved it away and lunged to his feet once more, grabbing his sword in two hands, slashing at the wolf's snout as it lunged. With one last scream of defiance, the wolf faded, and vanished.

Vilkas sheathed his sword, and extended his hand to his brother. It was a minute before Farkas took it, but when he did, he had a dazed expression on his face. "It's like relaxing into a warm mug of spiced mead," Farkas muttered, struggling back to his feet. He was sweating, heavily, but stood steady as could be wished. "I'm losing aches I didn't know I had." Suddenly he looked up and smiled, broad and open as a child. "This is how a warrior should feel: alive and aware, not clouded with thoughts of the hunt."

"You're all right?" Vilkas asked.

"Aye," Farkas said, and glanced from his brother to the fountain. "It's your turn."

Vilkas glanced over and met Sigrid's eyes. Though she had lifted the sack with the remaining head, she waited for his signal. After exhaling, long and slow, he nodded. "I'm ready." He watched with a strange sense of detachment as she strode back towards the blue flames, lifted the head in her hand, and threw it in.

The pain gripped him, suddenly, sharply. He could feel the very blood in his veins straining, as though it would burst through his skin. The burning flame of it rushed over him, and he could feel _something_ peeling away, and his hands scrabbled over his skin to make sure it was not that. No: through the haze of his vision he could see the spirit rising from his body, and the fury and betrayal of the wolf digging desperately for a hold in him yet. It was this desperate clawing of the beastblood to keep its claws in him that staggered him even more intensely than the physical pain, and he could see only a mist of red, hear only the baying of the hounds in the distance as he went down to his knees, sweating, gasping. He could not see the battle, but he could feel it, every stab of the blades in his chest as the wolf fought at every turn.

And then, abruptly, it was gone.

It was as though he'd ripped the blindfold from his eyes. Stepped from the dark into the light. A million other metaphors, none of which could do it justice. He felt _human_ again for the first time in years. Though he still feared the darkness he suspected was inherent to him, he knew deep in his bones that Kodlak had been right: this was the only way he would have known that it was not _only_ him. His voice sounded hoarse in his ears as he asked, "Is it over?"

"Yes," Sigrid said, stepping forward. Her sword, and Farkas', shone clean, unmarred by the darkness that had escaped from him. Her eyes, bright with relief, and a frightening sharp joy, met his.

"I… it's like waking up out of a dream," Vilkas said, still stunned, looking up at her as he hauled himself to his feet. "I can breathe more deeply now. I can't smell your heart beating the way I used to. But my mind… is clear. This is a great service you've done for me, Harbinger. Brother. I will not soon forget. Now… I'd like to spend some time communing with Ysgramor. My soul is clean now. Perhaps he'll still welcome me when my time comes."

She let both of them explore on their own, taking the time to settle herself next to the fountain and close her eyes for a bit. Vilkas watched her from the corner of the eye, marveling that though he felt nearly blind in comparison to the layers of information he had once had, he also felt… lighter.

New-born.

The rest of his life stretched before him, and for the first time since his fifteenth winter, he could look forward to the end with honor.

* * *

><p>The quiet was short-lived.<p>

"No," Sigrid said, several weeks later.

"My thane, you _can't_ turn this invitation down," Lydia said.

The Companions had been seated around the long mead hall table, finishing supper, when the courier arrived. Vilkas accepted the letter on her behalf, and read it quickly. When she'd seen the turn of his mouth downward, Sigrid demanded to know what it said, and unfortunately, the paper turned out to be an invitation to a feast in her own honor, for role in defeating both Ulfric Stormcloak and Alduin.

"No," Sigrid said. "I can't do it. I sit there and keep a straight face during this fucking _travesty_."

"Lydia is right, Harbinger," Aela said. "Unfortunately, Jarl Elisif has a good chance of becoming the next High King of Skyrim. The kingsmoot is fast approaching. It would not be wise to alienate her. Or the general, considering the power you've given him," the woman finished, just a hint of wry disapproval at the words.

Though she argued, in the end, she had no choice. She sent the courier back with her acceptance, and with a heavy heart, prepared for the journey to Solitude. It would require court clothing, something she had never worn before, and Tilma took her measurements with a slightly disapproving tut of her tongue as the woman grumbled about the length of the over-tunic, which could almost be mistaken for a dress if one did not see the breeches beneath. It also required a crash course in etiquette from Vilkas, which resulted in many books thrown in frustration across the Harbinger's chambers. "I'm just going to eat with my hands and spit on the floor," she growled, when she grew tired of him drilling her in the proper amount of time to hold a bow to a Jarl.

"Don't," he told her sharply, "or I'll make your dancing lessons twice as long."

"I have to _dance_?" she exclaimed in dismay.

"It's a formal court function," he said patiently. "You do. You'll have to lead."

"I'm going to step on every single one of your toes," she threatened.

"I'm sure you'd do that anyway."

Despite all of the preparation, she still dreaded the journey. She had assumed that her role as Skyrim's hero would be finished with Alduin, not that she would need to learn court etiquette in order to avoid causing problems with a future royal ruler. Diplomacy had never been her strong suit, nor had manners. She looked awkward in the clothes that Tilma had made for her, despite the fact that they were well-tailored: she wished more than anything that the _etiquette_ permitted the wearing of armor at such fetes.

Her worries proved well-founded, for the formal introduction was just as long and boring and embarrassing as she had expected it to be. Falk Firebeard, Elisif's steward, made several flowery speeches, and Sigrid gritted her teeth as she said her part. She could feel the staring eyes of the court at her back, and she held her head up defiantly, daring anyone to say a thing to her about the soft clothes embroidered with shining threads. Once the worst of it was over, the court broke for the first part of the feast, chattering to each other as servants carrying trays of food circulated amongst them.

Elisif walked up to her, smiling, and said, "My dear Dragonborn, won't you please come with me for a moment? I hate to pull you away from the court, but I have some questions for you…"

"Of course, Jarl Elisif," Sigrid replied. Vilkas met her eyes across the room, and mouthed _don't do anything stupid_ at her. _You should know by now_ she mouthed back, and he scowled.

Elisif smiled regally at the guards who parted for her, as she moved from the throne room towards a series of halls that finally led to a closed door, locked. She slipped a key from a pouch at her belt, and looked over her shoulder at Sigrid as she did. "You'll have to excuse the secrecy," she said, with a blindingly bright smile, "but I'd rather not have anyone over hear this conversation."

"I see," said Sigrid, though she did not. The door opened into what she assumed was the Jarl's bedchamber, a huge expanse of a room with a four-poster bed draped in velvet and furs. A strange gem glowed at the desk, and the entire thing reeked of a level of wealth that Sigrid herself could never find comfortable or easy. The Jarl, however, tossed her cloak over her shoulder and sat down in one of two chairs with unthinking ease, leaving Sigrid standing before her.

"As you know, the kingsmoot is fast approaching," Elisif said.

Sigrid said nothing, but waited for her to continue—despite the fact that she wore soft court clothes, she found herself shifting, unconsciously, into a more military pose: feet planted apart, arms folded across her chest. Elisif seemed a little uncomfortable at her silence, but soldiered bravely on with that same bright smile on her face. "I had hoped that you would not only attend the moot, but that you would speak in my favor."

"Me, milady?"

"Of course, you," Elisif said, just a touch impatiently. Her slim, carefully clean fingers drummed on the edge of the chair's arm. "Skyrim's greatest living hero, Alduin's bane." Though the woman cultivated a cheery but retiring air, her eyes were suddenly piercing as they swept up and down Sigrid's frame, taking her measure. "Your word would mean much at the moot. For all of the other Jarls to know your sword is at my side."

Sigrid's face felt as though it had frozen in an awkward grimace that was not quite smile, not quite frown. Vilkas' voice echoed in her head, admonishing her, but as always, she was unable to do anything that was not stupid. "That I cannot do," she said.

"What do you mean, you _cannot_?" Elisif said, her voice sharp.

"I am the Harbinger of the Companions," Sigrid said, lifting her chin. "I am a _soldier_, not a politician."

"You brought me the Jagged Crown," Elisif snapped, drawing herself up in the chair, regally offended. "You _overthrew _Ulfric Stormcloak."

"What I did then was for the good of Skyrim," Sigrid replied. "The Stormcloaks are vanquished and Alduin is gone. I refuse to involve myself, or the Companions, any further in this mess."

"I could _make_ you—"

Sigrid drew herself up to her full height—no small thing, especially as she stood towering over the seated Jarl already. "Jarl Elisif, you do not _make_ the Companions do _anything_. This audience is over." And she turned on her heel and stalked from the room, quite sure that her face was mottled with bright red fury, leaving Elisif dumbfounded in her wake.

So much for not doing anything stupid.

* * *

><p>Vilkas looked up from his conversation with Erikur, the pompous thane who would spend hours talking anyone's ear off about how successful his business was doing, and General Tullius, who looked just about as interested in Erikur as Vilkas felt. And then he saw Sigrid storming down the stairs. His stomach sank, for he had the distinct feeling she had probably said something to infuriate Elisif. Diplomacy was not, and never would be, the Harbinger's best quality. As she pulled him away from Erikur with a hissed apology, he whispered, "What the hell <em>happened<em>?"

"That—that _Jarl_ thinks she can just order us around like we're her _bodyguards_," she snarled, and he pulled her towards the corner of the room, for curious eyes began to turn their way. "I refused. I _refuse_ to get involved in that way. We're leaving."

"We can't leave just yet," he replied, "if you storm out of here—a feast given in _your_ honor, by the way—imagine the sort of rumors that would spread. You'd only be involving yourself in politics further."

Though she growled between her teeth, she did not storm out. "I don't like it."

"I don't either," he admitted, "but we only have one night of this, and then we can return to Jorrvaskr." What he did not say was that Elisif (and by extension, Tullius) would likely not give up so easily, and nor would the other jarls. Getting her through the rest of this night would be the true challenge.

Despite her fury, Sigrid performed as admirably as he could have hoped. Stiff-lipped, she accepted the congratulations and thanks of the Jarl, and though her bow was awkward, she dipped her head. And when the feast was over and the dancing began, she danced grimly, gamely with him. True to her word, she stepped on every single one of his toes, something he bore with great patience, secretly thankful for his steel-toed boots. It was during one of those dances, as her fingers gripped his shoulders awkwardly, her face full of an intense concentration as she tried to remember the steps, he decided that he was going to marry her.

Though once he'd had the idea, it took grasping hold of his thoughts, he waited until later in the night, when they had retired to the Winking Skeever. She had made a joke out of renting the room they'd slept in the night after rescuing Velwyn, the night she'd drunkenly pushed him against the door and started this whole mess in earnest. "Looks just like I left it," she drawled, as he held the door for her.

"You left it a lot messier, if I recall," he replied dryly.

She screwed up her face at him, and then turned, stripping hurriedly out of her court clothes with a happy sigh. "I felt naked without my armor," she said. "More naked than I feel right now, actually."

While she stripped, he took the Amulet of Mara from the pack where he'd secreted it, in order to prevent a repeat of her drunken proposal. Strangely, he did not feel nervous. Since ridding himself of the beastblood, his emotions had been clearer, more sure. It was with a strange calm that he slipped out of his own court clothes, and slid the amulet over his head, the cold weight of it chilly against his chest. When she finally turned, her appreciative gaze started lower and worked its way up—and then she froze when she saw it.

"Vilkas," she said slowly, "that's my amulet."

"Yes."

"And you… are you sure?"

He stepped forward, and she came to meet him in the center of the room, slipping her arms around his waist. "Sigrid," he said. "After everything we've done together, after everything we've shared… of course I'm sure. The future may be uncertain, with war on the horizon, with you frustrating Jarls left and right—" here, she snorted in amused denial, "—and with the Companions growing and Jorrvaskr more active than it's been in years… but after that night when you disappeared, I knew then that I'd regret losing you without… doing this. Without taking this risk."

She was looking at him intently, her face white, her eyes wide in the dark.

"Are you still—ah—interested?"

"Of course I am, you bloody idiot," she said, and pulled him towards the bed with an enthusiastic kiss, and he knew then that whatever twists and turns lay in the path of his life, however long it took them to make it to Riften, whatever happened in the interim, it didn't matter—for they would confront it together, knight and general, sword and shield, and they would yet live their lives together in the face of it all.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> Well, that's all, folks. Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing throughout this monster. I'm sorry if the ending felt a little rushed, but I'm really eager to start working on my original fiction again and I just had the most abrupt writing fatigue with this thing. I won't totally rule out the possibility of a sequel, but if it does happen it probably won't be for quite a while.

Anyway, thank you all once more. I appreciate every one of your kind words. :)


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